Together at the Horizon
by Girl with the Dragon Heart
Summary: AU After a century, the Avatar has still not been reincarnated, allowing the Fire Nation to continue its conquest of the world. A young Airbender befriends a Waterbender and Firebender, both of whom are living with a terrible curse. Formerly titled "Tale of the Grey Wolf and Golden Hawk"
1. Chapter 1

The 1985 movie _Ladyhawke_ inspired this little story – if you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out! A young Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer star in it. This is definitely AU, and I try to explain everything within the story; please review if you notice any plot holes or have any questions. I'm always looking to improve my writing :) This story takes place in the Northwestern part of the Earth Kingdom where the Fire Nation colonies and strongholds are.

I referenced a great map a LOT while working on this – I recommend a look to better understand the geography of this story (and ATLA in general)! It's at http (colon-slash-slash) bit (period) ly (slash) 1Ad1A3p

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As the Fire Nation soldiers chased him in their bulky armor, Aang realized he had probably been hallucinating a little when he stole that fruit pie. The lychee nut berries had practically been singing to him about how happy they were to be contained by that perfectly golden flakey crust, and he had been hypnotized by their song when talk of how much better they would feel in his stomach began. When the merchant turned around to begin closing up shop, he had swiped it and ran, realizing his mistake when the merchant began shouting for guards. The market had a few stragglers from the day, but most of the people in this sleepy town had returned home for the evening.

He dropped the pastry in the bag he wore across his body, and began to look for his escape in earnest. He swore at himself, and those traitorous lychee nuts when he found himself in a dead-end ally and began to climb.

The soldiers ran past the ally, calling out to another and Aang counted himself lucky until a huffing suit of armor at the rear saw him. Why had it been easier to escape that Fire Nation stronghold in the mountains that morning than this stupid little colony town? He hoisted himself up onto the red-tiled roof and began jumping high above streets and walkways, heading toward the gate he had entered earlier that afternoon. His glider staff would have been very handy in this scenario, but it was only-spirits-knew-where.

Suddenly the rooftops ran out as he reached another square in town, and he flipped off the ledge. He landed lightly, and saw another small company of soldiers marching near the fountain in the middle of the square. He tried to look nonchalant and completely innocent of any wrongdoing, hoping the news hadn't reached them yet. As he turned and whistled, a ruckus warned him that his luck had run out.

Stupid lychee nut pastry pie, he thought. You'd better be worth this trouble.

This second company of soldiers chasing him was fast, and before he could stop himself, his airbending instincts kicked in as he created an air scooter to make a sharp corner at high speeds.

Great, now I've really done it, he thought to himself when horns and drums sounded along with the shouts. He could see the gate he had entered the city through, and he counted himself lucky that they had not closed it for the night though twilight crept quickly over the land.

The guards at the gate looked confused at the melee. More civilians came to windows and hollered at the airbender. Some of the younger children egged him on, their mothers covering their mouths and shushing them before the neighbors could hear and gossip. Teenagers not quite old enough for the draft laughed, and some threw trash at him. Some of the older men grabbed whatever tools they had been using – broomsticks, hammers, cooking pans – and joined in the chase.

Aang dodged it all – focusing all of his energy on the lowering portcullis ahead of him. He leaned forward and put more effort into the scooter, leaving a plume of dust in his wake, forcing some of his pursuers to cough.

He didn't have the energy to make it up and over the wall safely if he failed to beat the gate, and he couldn't risk recapture and whatever that insane commander at the fortress had planned. The gate chain creaked slowly, but he still had to dive off his air scooter and roll under the large metal gate before it made contact with the ground. He dusted himself off as he stood, laughing and smiling at the soldiers on the wrong side of the barrier.

"Haha! Come and catch me if you can!" He stuck out his tongue, and promptly sidestepped some fireballs thrown his way as the chain began its slow grind again, winding the gate back up.

Really good use of time, buddy, he berated himself as he took off at a dead sprint for the nearby woods. By the time he reached the edge of the meadow, darkness had truly fallen and the small force chasing him had fanned out to cover more ground. He ran his foot into a stump or a rock and swallowed back curses as the soldiers called back and forth to another.

He climbed the first tree tall enough to support him, and he began jumping from tree to tree further into the forest. After about ten minutes, he paused and waited. The soft symphony of owls and insects around him gradually quieted and stopped.

The silence emphasized the sounds of a search party closing in. Two men holding a torch came near Aang's tree. Aang thought of himself as a statue, not knowing how long it had been since he moved. It could've been shortly after dusk; it could have been midnight, or it could have been shortly before dawn. His legs shook and then cramped. The stillness of the night continued as if all creatures, including the breeze in the tress, were holding their breathes with Aang.

"I don't know why we haven't just gotten rid of this forest yet," one complained to the other. "These trees give me the creeps."

"You heard the Commander, Lee. He wants that airbender in custody by midnight," the other replied as he hacked away at some low-hanging branches with a hatchet. "We don't have time to worry about this gods-forsaken place right now."

"That's the other thing," Lee continued, apparently not concerned with how his voice carried in the still night. "Where did that airbender come from? I thought they were trapped on their mountains. And if he is a terrorist like the wanted notice claims, he's the dumbest I've ever heard of – risking his freedom for a fruit pie!"

Aang silently agreed with Lee. It was a dumb move.

His companion sighed and slumped beneath the tree. "We're not going to find anything out here until dawn," he stated, dejected. "We should just burn this entire place down. You're right – it's depressing."

The night's stillness continued while the soldiers complained and moaned about their lot in life, but Aang thought he heard something growling softly nearby.

"Did you hear that?" the one who wasn't Lee must've heard it too.

Aang didn't find out if Lee had heard the growl, because a large grey wolf jumped out and took him by the throat. A man in dark clothing stepped into the torchlight.

"Leave him," he ordered, and the wolf dropped Lee, who held a hand up to staunch the blood now ringing the front of his neck.

The two soldiers scrambled away from the man and his wolf with matching looks of terror on their faces.

"Who – who are you?" not-Lee stuttered.

"It's none of your concern if you leave these woods tonight," the man growled. "Now tell me your business here."

"We are soldiers from Pohuai Stronghold, and we patrol these lands," not-Lee stated with false bravado, straightening his spine but not hiding the shake in his voice. "We ask the questions here, now who are you?"

"What are you patrolling for in these woods?" the man was unfazed, and the wolf bared its teeth.

"We are in charge – now who –" the wolf snarled and lunged at him.

"Airbender," Lee gasped out, still holding his throat. "Airbender escaped Zhao."

The man stepped closer and held Lee up by the front of his shirt. "You're lying. Why would an airbender be here?" he demanded.

Lee shook his head. "Don't know, just that Zhao needs him back."

The man tore Lee's sleeve off before throwing him down to the ground. "Stop the blood with that. It's only a flesh wound anyway," he sounded slightly disgusted as he tossed the sleeve down on him.

Lee nodded, but his uneasy facial expression betrayed his fear. His companion knelt, held in place on his knees by the wolf's stare. As Lee wrapped the sleeve around his neck, he peered at the man again in the torchlight.

"Sir, have we met before? You look familiar," he ventured. The torch started going out for no apparent reason.

"If you have no other information, you should leave these woods before dawn. It would be difficult if that torch were to be extinguished," the man threatened.

Lee and the other soldier nodded and stood. Not-Lee picked up the torch and they began retreating. Lee looked behind him one last time at the man while holding his impromptu bandage together.

Even after the sounds of their crashing in the underbrush subsided and the forest slowly release its held breath, Aang remained motionless in the tree, and the man and the wolf stood silently below. The wolf began scratching at the base of the trunk.

"Airbender, come out of that tree," the man spoke after a few more minutes of silence.

Aang huffed and stretched before bounding down the tree. He thought briefly about the lychee nut pastry in his satchel that was probably squished beyond recognition and wondered if he would ever get to actually eat it.

"Thanks for getting those soldiers out of here," he began, wondering if gratuity would help his case.

"Was what they said true?" the man interrupted Aang's thanks.

"Which part?" Aang expected threats or a wolf attack, not questions.

"That you escaped Zhao."

"Oh, that? Yeah, but please don't take me back – they were trumped up charges anyway! I just got caught in a storm and crashed my glider within Pohuai, which I guess Zhao thought was some sort of attack," Aang felt the words rush from his brain to mouth without filtering first. Word vomit, Aang thought of his friend Jinju's term for the unfortunate habit. "I honestly did nothing wrong – well, until I stole that fruit pie after I left, but what is a stale lychee nut tart actually worth at the end of the day?" he shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed.

"So, you escaped Zhao at Pohuai?" the man clarified.

"Yes?"

"I bet he hated that," the man smirked slightly. The wolf wagged its tail and leaned its head against the man's leg for an ear scratch.

"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have used his head as a springboard when I ran away either."

At this the man smiled dangerously, and the wolf barked, wagging its tail. Aang fleetingly thought about what kind of unhinged, unsavory type of person lived in the woods with a pet wolf, and disliked authority. Crazy hermit? He wondered.

"So um, I should probably be off now. Don't want to run into any other soldiers tonight or anything," he announced, brushing his hands on his filthy pants and standing straighter. "Thanks again for the help!"

The wolf sat and seemed to have a staring contest with the man while cocking its head in Aang's direction. Now I'm starting to act like a woods weirdo too, Aang thought nervously, thinking this wolf understands what is going on. He slowly edged away from the duo.

Whatever transpired between the two, the man seemed to lose their wordless debate. "You can stay with us tonight and decide what to do tomorrow. It'll be safer at our camp"

The man held up a ball of flame in his hand and started leading the way, holding a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence. Aang startled at the fire and swallowed hard, but followed them further into the woods.

* * *

The man was nearly silent on their walk to his camp, and stopped a few times to extinguish his fire and listen if an animal made a strange noise. Aang, in comparison, felt like a bumbling fool announcing their position with every cracked twig, every bush he scratched himself on. Remembering the last time he was in such close proximity to a Fire Bender, he was warily grateful for the light. After nearly another hour in the woods – Aang assumed the man was taking him in circles to throw off any followers or to confuse him – they arrived in a small clearing.

The camp was sparse, but tidy. Aang spotted a single bedroll laid out and pack next to it. Some trees towered overhead that Aang figured he could post up in. He could hear the faint trickle of a spring or stream nearby.

Aang nervously leaned against a log near the fire and fidgeted while the man piled some wood in the stone fire circle and snapped his fingers near some leaves and kindling. He lifted the lid on a pot that had been in the dying embers of the fire from the day before. Aang's stomach growled loudly as he realized he had eaten nothing but a measly bowl of prison gruel in two days.

The man looked up as he stirred the contents with a wooden spoon. "There isn't much here – I didn't exactly get the chance to hunt tonight."

"That's fine," Aang replied, remembering the pastry. "I actually don't eat meat, and I have this tart that we could split." He pulled a sad, squished lychee nut pastry from his satchel. It was worse than he had imagined.

"You weren't kidding about that lychee nut thing?" the man sounded surprised.

Aang looked at his face for the first time. He was only a few years older than Aang – perhaps twenty or so - and had the black hair and golden eyes typical in the Fire Nation. He also had a large healed scar on the left side of his face. Rather startled by the sight, he realized he hadn't replied. "I never kid about lychee nuts," he intoned in a mock-serious manner. When the man didn't say anything more, he continued cautiously. "My name is Aang. Thanks for letting me stay here tonight."

The man seemed a little bashful and kept stirring the pot. "Well, it wasn't really my idea."

The previous thought of an unhinged man living in the forest to avoid authority figures flashed in Aang's mind again, and he wondered how the man got his scar.

Perhaps realizing how awkward this was becoming, the man replaced the lid on the pot and leaned against the wolf, which was lying on the ground behind him. "I'm Zuko," he finally said, reaching over his shoulder to scratch the wolf's belly. "I haven't exactly made a lot of friends since I moved here."

Crazy Firebending hermit, Aang glanced up, hoping he hadn't vocalized his initial thoughts. "How long have you and your," he motioned toward the wolf, not sure if "pet" was an acceptable term, "companion lived out here?"

"Here? Maybe a year. It's hard for me to keep track of time. Now tell me again, slower – how were you captured by Zhao?"

Aang wondered how hard it could be to keep track of time, but didn't ask. Instead, he told him how he had left his air bison to scout ahead on his glider. He was only trying to find a safe path for a large furry bison to fly without causing a ruckus in a Fire Nation colony town or stronghold, when a storm had stranded him too close to one such stronghold. He had been captured, and spent a night there before he had evaded his captors when they were taking him to be 'interrogated.'

Zuko asked few questions, but asked again for the tale of his escape. He seemed especially entertained by the thought of Aang stepping up on Zhao's head and flipping up on the ramparts. When it was ready, he handed him a small bowl of earthy stew. They split the fruit pie, and ate in near silence. Aang savored every last buttery golden flake of the crust and found a perverse joy in eating the treacherous singing lychee nuts. He smacked his lips together to distract from how his stomach rumbled a bit even after he finished eating. The events of the day caught up with him quickly, and he hopped up in a tree to settle in for the night, reciting a small prayer of protection for Appa and thanks for the strange, scarred firebender who helped him.

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Next chapter is nearly polished – should be posted soon! :D


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, thanks for all of the love, guys! Seriously – you all rock.

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The sun filtered through the leafy trees earlier than Aang would have liked, and its bright warmth made sleep impossible in his comfortable perch several meters above the fire ring. Not seeing anyone in the camp, he twirled out of his perch and landed softly on the ground. The fire had been banked up to a constant flame, but all of Zuko's belongings other than his bedroll were packed away.

A branch cracked behind him and he turned around quickly, hoping to see Zuko. A startled young woman greeted him instead, crouched in a defensive position with water tentacles surrounding her. "Um, hi," he called tentatively. "I didn't realize anyone else was here – I'm Aang."

She kept her water tentacles at the ready, but relaxed her stance slightly as she took in his orange and brown clothing and stared at the blue tattoo peeking through his hair. "Where did you come from?" she demanded, her face an emotionless mask.

"Zuko helped me last night and let me stay here. He said I could decide whether to stick around or not this morning," he kept a close watch on the water whipping around her body.

She narrowed her eyes, but brought her arms around, gathering the water into a ball in front of her before depositing it in a flask at her hip. A hawk cried nearby.

"Zuko told you to decide this morning, did he?" she asked, her eyes still narrowed.

"Um, yeah, but I can just go if it's a problem," Aang stuttered.

"He must have had a reason for that offer," she sighed. The hawk cried out again, directly above, and she held out a leather-covered arm for it to land before she transferred it up to her shoulder, clucking and petting its head.

"Actually, it kind of seemed like his wolf convinced him," Aang acquiesced before thinking through how crazy that sounded.

"Sure, blame the _wolf,_" she rolled her eyes at the hawk before allowing it to nuzzle her face. She glanced back up at Aang. "Sorry, I'm Katara. How did you end up here with Zuko?"

Aang gave her a brief summary of his capture, escape and near recapture, ending with Zuko and the wolf chasing off the last two soldiers.

"So Zhao captured you just for being an airbender?" Katara clarified.

He nodded, and her earlier distrust melted into excitement. Her eyes practically twinkled, and Aang realized she wasn't too much older than him.

"I've never met an airbender before!" she exclaimed. "You have to show me some of your forms. I love watching other benders."

Aang perked up, finding her enthusiasm contagious. "Sure! That water tentacle thing you did earlier was cool – maybe we can learn from each other." Appa flashed in his mind, and he spoke around the thickness at the back of his throat. "I really need to find my air bison, though. It's been three days since I left him, and I was supposed to return yesterday."

She scratched at the ground with her heel thoughtfully. "That explains why he cleaned up so much," she muttered more to herself than to Aang. She fixed her gaze on him again. "Since Zuko brought you to our camp, and a bunch of soldiers are searching for you, we may as well team up. I'll help you find your bison in exchange for some bending practice."

He jumped at the offer of help. "I left him at an Earth Kingdom Abbey a little west of here. He'll probably wait around for a few more days before heading north to try to find me. If he does leave, I hope we can catch him first to avoid backtracking." He used his airbending to clear some old leaves and pine needles off the ground and scratched a schematic in the dirt with a stick.

Katara rifled through the pack and pulled out a rough map to compare to Aang's scratches. She grinned. "We're trying to avoid Zhao and the rest of the Fire Nation too, so another travel buddy would be nice. We probably need to abandon this area anyway if they're sending more soldiers out to look for you, rogue airbender."

"What did _you_ do to piss off the Fire Nation?" Aang asked, still trying to figure out his new – _what are these people? Allies? Friends?_

Katara smiled tightly and told him that she would tell him later, but that he _needed to pack his things right now, thank you very much. _She promised that Zuko would catch up with them that night, and Aang didn't argue. Now that they had a plan, he was eager to start moving. It didn't take them long to break camp and begin trekking west toward the mountains. The hawk took flight, and periodically circled back to perch on Katara's shoulder again, practically chirping when she fed it tidbits of jerky from her pack. Aang wondered how Zuko would find them again, and why Katara seemed unconcerned with it.

While they walked, Katara asked him what it was like at the Air Temple. His tattoos piqued her curiosity, and she was surprised to find out he came from the South.

"We'd been told the Fire Nation completely wiped out the Southern Air Temple during Sozin's Comet!" she exclaimed, nearly tripping over a downed tree in her surprise.

He laughed. "We're nomads, so even though Sozin wiped out most of the monks who were at the Temple, most of the southern airbenders survived. My ancestors hid out for a while in the mountains, and quietly set up in the temple again after a few years. We still try to keep a low profile. We get the occasional Fire Nation steamer who lands and a captain who will make threats against harboring the Avatar, but they've let up on it, so I'm not sure it's a huge priority anymore."

Their pace slowed as they started climbing a ridge, and the conversation steered in a more serious direction. "Do you think the Avatar ever existed outside of legends?" Katara asked quietly.

Aang pondered how to string his words together. "I don't know. The monks talk about having hope, but it doesn't seem like the Avatar cycle has ever taken this long to reincarnate before."

Katara seemed thoughtful. "Is it possible that the Air Avatar has already lived, but hid away his or her entire life?"

"I don't know. I think they would go public. I can't imagine any Air Nomad with that much potential to return balance to the world to just sit back and do nothing. Even the oldest gurus alive were still babies when Roku died, so it's possible we simply don't know what to look for anymore." Aang felt bitter at the loss of knowledge.

"Tell me about the South," Katara prompted, trying to change the subject to happier matter.

He described the festivals, with their lanterns and decorative fans and competitive air scooter races. He went into great detail about the crafting of legendary fruit pies and sweet cakes and the pranks and his friends. He told her stories of his air bison Appa and pet lemur Momo, who he had left in the care of his best friend Jinju. How autumn was the best time to harness the winds and travel the world by glider. How his decision to celebrate his sixteenth birthday by traveling to the Northern Air Temple by himself started this whole ordeal. His adventures with his other airbending friends sneaking into Ba Sing Se and roaming the eastern archipelago of the Fire Nation. How peaceful his people were in reality, and how sad he was to run into Fire Nation people who harshly judged them due to misinformation and propaganda.

They set up camp in mid-afternoon at the top of a cliff that overlooked a stream. They had only hiked a few miles west, but their location was secure and Katara was eager to bend with Aang. Even though he had mastered airbending years before, he watched to see if he could improve or learn new techniques. They scaled down the cliff and stripped out of their traveling clothes in the warm sunshine. After they washed up and splashed in the shallows, Aang asked how she had come to the fire colonies.

"It's kind of a long story," she responded, as she twirled a stream of water around her in a lazy flow. "I'm from the South too – the South Pole," she corrected. "When it looked like there was a chance at peace, my father, brother, and I traveled to the Fire Nation as part of an ambassador party."

Aang whistled. "That must've been a few years ago. Ozai hasn't exactly been the peaceful sort."

She nodded slowly. "We arrived shortly after Azulon died and Ozai seized the throne from Iroh. My mother was killed in a raid when I was little, so my father went ahead with talks to stop the attacks on our people. Ozai let my father and brother leave in peace, but kept me as a hostage at the palace as leverage for the southern ships to stop attacking Fire Nation vessels."

Aang winced, and started following her movements. "That sounds really rough, Katara."

She shrugged, but kept her movements fluid. "The first two years were the worst. When General Iroh returned from Ba Sing Se, he took charge of my care, and I felt less like a hostage - he was more like my foster father, like the Water Tribes used to do before the war. They actually found a water bending master to teach me," she glowed at the memory. "Well, Zuko and his uncle found a water bending master for me."

He stopped following her from surprise. "No wonder you like Zuko so much. He seems like a pretty great guy."

She blushed and kept her eyes on her water. "He's a little rough at first, but he's really a big softie."

Aang nodded and continued to imitate her slow movements with air. He felt his chi slow through his body. He thought of the technique as a gentle ebb and flow rather than the constant push of airbending. Something felt off-balance, even though Aang continued to move through the forms while Katara spoke.

"That's the reason why I followed him here when he was – when he moved here."

Aang thought there might be more to the story and debated whether to call her out on it or not. The nosy part of him won. "You must be really great _friends_ if you ran away to be with him," he remarked dryly, arching an eyebrow.

Katara practically glowed as she looked down at the water she shuffled between her arms. "Yeah, we've been more than just friends for almost three years," she said quietly. "We don't get to spend much time with each other any more, though."

Aang stopped bending in his distraction. "But you guys are both here, aren't you?"

Katara seemed to struggle with words and tossed her bending water in the river to open her water flask to drink from it. The hawk alighted on her shoulder and rubbed its head against her cheek. After she took a swig, she handed the flask to Aang and started petting the hawk on her shoulder. "We can't talk about it, but I'm sure if you stick around us long enough you'll figure it out," she hinted. "You seem like a smart kid."

Aang screwed the lid back in the water skin, and Katara drew another globe of water from the river as the hawk deserted her shoulder to perch on a nearby rock. "So I'm guessing we'll see Zuko again soon, even if he isn't traveling with us now," Aang tried to understand what she wasn't able to tell him.

"Now that you've left the Fire Nation, what's happening with your family at the South Pole? Aren't they worried about you?" Aang thought a change of subject might be helpful and settled into his bending stance once more.

A dark cloud passed over her face. "Ozai allowed the Southern Raiders to resume their attacks on the South Pole. There isn't even much left – I was the last waterbender there." Her motions grew choppier, and the water around her almost surged with her anger. "My father rallied the Southern Fleet to resume sabotaging Fire Nation trading routes, and my brother is off somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. I haven't heard from him in nearly a year. Last I heard, most of my village had fled to the North Pole or are refugees throughout the Earth Kingdom."

"I'm sorry Katara," Aang wished he hadn't asked. Although he traveled a bit from the Southern Air Temple, news did not reach them often, or quickly.

Katara silently collected herself and exhaled deeply, the water surrounding her like a drooping ring. Aang stopped concentrating on his own movements to marvel at her control. Not a single drop of water fell from her grasp. She resumed her slow fluid forms. Aang followed some of her waterbending forms with air, but started to feel even worse, as if he was doing something completely wrong with his element.

He sat down on a rock next to the hawk while Katara moved through her forms. The hawk didn't move, and seemed to watch Katara too. As Aang looked at its face more closely, he noticed the left side of its face had a different feather pattern – it appeared molten, almost like a scar.

He did not mention this observation to Katara, who followed her forms out to end her practice. After she froze her water into thousands of individual ice droplets that rained into the river, she asked him if he could return to camp and give her a few moments alone at the river.

He made his way back to their meager supplies, climbed a new tree, and sat in the highest branches to watch the sun set behind the mountains that housed their destination. The leaves were still a vibrant green, and Aang couldn't wait for them to start turning colors. He waited all year for autumn, and loved when it finally rolled around– not only for the changing winds, but also for the colors and the sound of the wind in the dry leaves. A breeze caressed his face, reminding him of the updraft that he had harnessed to glide over these same mountains days before.

His heart panged thinking about his glider, left behind in Zhao's fortress. Shaking himself from his negative thoughts, he imagined what the other monks at the Southern Air Temple were doing at that moment. Preparations for the festivals had begun even before he started his journey, so the celebrations should have been in full swing.

The elders would share the old myths and epics over bakery fires and around bonfires. Some retold simple parables; others recited Guru Laghima's poetry. Aang's favorites were historical tales, especially evading Sozin's comet. At the end of a summer over one hundred years ago, a fleet of Fire Nation ships attacked the temple. The Monks evacuated most of the young trainees and quite a few of them were able to get away as well; the head monk Gyatso fended off nearly a dozen before falling himself. With the airbenders scattered, the Fire Nation was unable to completely wipe them out. Rumors flew that Sozin had been intent on killing the next Avatar, which is why he focused his attack on the Southern Air Temple. For all they knew, however, he succeeded – no Avatar had been found since Roku.

* * *

Aang greeted Zuko expectantly when he and his wolf came out of the trees as the stars began rising. He had collected some roots and nuts throughout their hike, and began mixing them together for dinner.

"How did you find us? We've been walking all day," Aang asked anyway.

"I'm not really a daytime person," he replied as he took a well-gnawed bone out of the pack and tossed it to the wolf.

"Firebender, don't lie to me," Aang warned sarcastically. "I know something is up – I met your friend, Katara. She's nice." Aang watched Zuko closely, but saw no reaction. "She said you're really just a big softie inside a Boarcupine skin. And I think she's right."

Zuko laughed at that, and the wolf also barked with amusement. "Did she really compare me to a Boarcupine?" he asked, scratching the wolf's ears fondly.

"Well, no, but she seems to really like you," Aang started to tease. He felt his joking mood desert him when Zuko leveled him with his golden stare.

"I miss her more than you can know," he stated fiercely.

"So is it something you can talk about?" Aang prodded.

"You know, I'd just _love_ to talk about this, but I really can't," Zuko replied acidically.

Aang decided to change the subject before Zuko started breathing smoke or tossing fireballs. "She showed me some of her waterbending moves. I think I can improve my airbending with them. Maybe we could show each other some bending forms too?"

Zuko thought it over, and looked at him sideways. "What if we spar instead, airbender? Loser has to fix dinner tomorrow night."

"You're on, Hotman," Aang sprung to his feet and they continued to rib each other as they found an area that would be less likely to catch on fire. "You do remember that I'm a vegetarian, right? You know, for when you're in charge of making my dinner"

Zuko punched him cordially in the shoulder before they crouched in their starting positions.

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As always, please let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns. I love it all! (Just not hate mail. If you hate it, please be, like, civil about it) Next chapter should be posted within a week!


	3. Chapter 3

Happy Monday all! I got a little excited about this chapter, and actually decided to split it into two parts so it wouldn't be too long and I could update more quickly :) You reviewers and PMers are sharp! I'm trying to keep things as mysterious as possible, but several of you have figured it out.

* * *

Aang startled awake in the lower branches of the tree he had claimed the night before. The sky was already lightening though the sun had not cracked the horizon yet. He looked down where Zuko and the wolf shared a sleeping pallet, sleepily baffled when he saw Katara and Zuko lying side-by-side. Zuko stroked her face with a pained look in his eye and pressed a kiss to her brow. Sunlight filtered through the trees, temporarily blinding Aang, and when he looked down again, he only saw Katara in the sleeping roll with the hawk perched on her pillow. Feeling hazy, he wondered if he dreamt the entire exchange. As he nodded off, he thought he heard soft crying from below.

Thus began one of the strangest weeks in Aang's life. If he woke up before dawn, he would wait in whatever tree he had fallen asleep in until he heard Katara moving about, afraid to intrude on a tender moment if it had been more than a dream. They would eat whatever dinner was leftover from the night before, kept warm in the embers of the fire. He and Katara kept to trails created by animals or ridge tops, moving west toward the Abbey as quickly as they could. In the evenings, they took turns showing each other bending forms that could be adapted by the other and sometimes sparred lightly.

Katara and her hawk would disappear just before sunset, and Zuko would show up at camp with his wolf. They would spar, and the loser (usually Aang) would throw some roots and bark into a pot for stew. Zuko would scout ahead and scratch notes in the ashes of the fire, describing what he could make out in the darkness of the night while Aang slept.

They forded streams, and Aang was grateful to travel with a waterbender. She bent most of the moisture from their clothing, and Aang blasted them with air to finish the job.

They scrambled up rock faces to avoid leaving tracks, and Aang quickly realized how easy his airbending life was. He found a new respect for mountains as he climbed them, rather than floating high above them on his glider or Appa. Katara did not remark on his slower pace; she gently encouraged him to keep moving when he felt his legs were going to give out. Sometimes after sparring, she would glove her hands in glowing water and massage his legs, healing them faster so he would not be as sore the next day. He closed his eyes and relaxed under her ministrations, thanking her profusely and trying to avoid they hawk's critical glare when she was finished.

They kept their eyes to the sky, and Aang would occasionally blow his bison whistle, hoping to catch Appa if the nuns had tired of feeding him and let him fly off by himself.

Aang stopped asking about their opposite schedules, why the hawk's face looked like it had Zuko's scar, or why the wolf had the same blue eyes as Katara. Like the first day, their inability to speak about the subject seemed to be part of the strange curse. Aang started wracking his brain for ways to help his friends out of their doomed existence, wondering if they would be able to travel to one of the air temples with him to consult with the Elders.

They shared more stories about their homes and loved ones they hadn't seen in months. Katara often spoke fondly of General Iroh, his appreciation for tea and respect for other cultures. She told stories about her brother's antic when they were younger, and told Aang about how happy she had been to run into him in a Fire Nation colony town a year previous. He had left abruptly for a secretive quest, but told her that he would track her down when he returned. She didn't mention Zuko often, but occasionally she would choke or start coughing if the topic skirted too closely to their predicament.

Although he had started the week chastising himself for his capture and intruding on Katara and Zuko's strange little life in the forest, he came to appreciate his new friends. Even when Katara didn't have time to heal his legs, he marveled at his new strength and hobbled around the campfire as though the soreness in his muscles was a badge of honor. He felt as if he had discovered a new reservoir of strength within his psyche and was slowly filling it with every ridgeline crested, every stream forded, every sparring match, won or lost.

They spent one tense afternoon mid-week crouching in the mid-branches of trees while a pair of Fire Nation soldiers half-heartedly combed the woods beneath them, complaining about their assignment and trampled over Aang and Katara's own footprints.

"'Look for a hawk,' the Commander told us," one soldier complained. "Honestly, we're close to the Fire Nation Colonies, where people use messenger hawks everyday. What sort of a lead is that?"

Katara and the Zuko-hawk looked at each other, Katara's brow furrowed in bewilderment. Aang kept a finger to his lips and prayed silently for the soldiers to turn back east, to return to the Stronghold, but had no such luck. The soldiers crashed through the underbrush, continuing west.

When they stretched and climbed down from their hiding spot, they hiked until dusk. Aang was dying to know Katara's thoughts about the soldier's comments, but she shook with violent coughs every time she tried to answer his questions. She asked him not to tell Zuko about the soldier's comment as the sun set.

They continued to hike west, even more alert for the soldiers who might be returning on the same path. They walked in silence more, and stuck to the ridgelines to better spot any other threats. A few times, the birdsong of the forest ceased and they jumped into trees again. These were all false alarms, which only added to their nervousness. Zuko started staying closer to camp, staying up to take the watch instead of scouting ahead.

The hawk took to flying above them more, with the hope that he would alert them to any real dangers before they hit. Katara seemed even more nervous with him out of her sight, and held him close to her chest, petting his head and whispering words of thanks when he returned to them.

The leaves changed colors brilliantly during this short time, and the wind brought with it the crisp promise of cooler days, especially as they hiked deeper into the mountains. Aang started waking up covered with a blanket of brown crunchy leaves, and was more eager to reunite with Appa and take to the skies. When he tried a form he had based on waterbending or firebending, he still felt a little sick, as though using waterbending or firebending forms with air repulsed a part of his soul.

It came to a head near the end of their journey. The day was clear and bright; he and Katara ran through bending forms in a pool below a waterfall together. The hawk circled above them, and Aang could tell Katara was distracted.

Aang still felt a little out of it when adapting the waterbending forms, and asked Katara to explain it again, both to improve his stance, and to distract her from the hawk above. She spoke of the push and pull, how the original benders were the ocean and the moon. She told him about the balance, and how she could feel it everywhere, even down to her blood. She went on to explain that this balance was the basis of all of the waterbending forms.

Aang closed his eyes, exhaled, and tried again. He visualized the tides moving in and out again. He thought of that new source of strength in his core. He started running through the forms again without really thinking, this time feeling the balance Katara talked about. He no longer felt sick, and was startled when Katara spoke.

"Aang, you're _waterbending_," she sounded a little breathless, and Aang was confused until he looked down and realized he hadn't been swirling air around in the water movements – he had pulled a slip of water from the stream and was spinning it into a lazily spinning globe. His concentration gone, water splashed down his pants and on his feet.

"This is impossible – I've never – _what?_" Aang stuttered.

Katara froze her water and chucked it in the stream. "There's no way you're just an airbender," she said excitedly and begged him to try again. "Zuko's going to flip," she clapped her hands after he ran through more waterbending forms and consoled him when he tried creating – and failing – fire with some of Zuko's forms.

* * *

As he chopped up roots for what they simply referred to as "Earth Stew," Aang told Zuko about the episode. Zuko immediately made Aang drop his knife and walked him through the basics of fire bending.

"I didn't really show you _how_ to firebend – I just kind of showed off some moves to defeat you," Zuko confessed.

"It's not like you were trying to _teach_ me how to firebend," Aang waved off the unnecessary apology.

Zuko explained – in greater detail – what his inner fire felt like. How it was a reserve that needed to be tended carefully. "You need to be careful not to try too much with it right away, or you could hurt yourself or somebody else," he warned.

Aang tried to produce fire a few times by following Zuko's instructions, but still felt a little of-balance. "So it's like, you have an inner flame that you just," he made a whooshing noise with his mouth, "let outside of your body?"

Zuko laughed softly. "It's more of a," he made a deeper sound like an explosion. "Uncle once told me he imagined airbending was similar to firebending, except you're harnessing something all around you instead of within you."

Aang was still slightly confused, and Zuko reassured him. "Maybe we should start with meditation so you can figure out what your inner fire feels like," he recommended after they had no success in getting Aang to create a flame.

Aang thought about this statement and closed his eyes like he had when he first bended water. He tried to clear his mind of everything but finding his inner fire and ran through the forms again. Zuko stood back and watched him, congratulating him when he managed to shoot small flames from his hands.

"Work on your meditation – I guess you're supposed to master the other two elements before fire anyway," Zuko said before reminding him that dinner wouldn't cook itself.

"Since I'm the Avatar, shouldn't _you_ make dinner for a few nights?" Aang cheekily responded.

Zuko collapsed in a heap on the opposite side of the fire and held his head in his hands, like he was still trying to believe his new little friend was the legendary, long-awaited _Avatar_. "I can't believe this," Zuko groaned. "Avatar Aang." He started laughing, and Aang was reminded of the maniacal hermit he had been afraid of the first night. He nervously looked the blue-eyed wolf, who lay with her head on her paws, looking between the two of them.

"Don't worry about me, Aang," Zuko reassured him when he returned to himself. "It's just that when I was banished-"

"You were _banished?_" Aang interjected.

"When I was _banished_," Zuko reiterated. "I was told I could not return home unless I came with the Avatar."

Aang was confused. "I think you're leaving out parts of your story here."

"I kind of assumed Katara would have spilled all of our secrets by now," Zuko sobered up.

"She kind of seizes up whenever she tries. It's almost like there's a curse preventing her from talking about something," Aang stated, arching his eyebrows pointedly. "And she said there were things you needed to tell me, or I would start acting weird around you. You're not very forthcoming so I figured it would be better if it came up naturally," he shrugged, thinking his logic very sound. "All I know is that you're friends from the Fire Nation so I assumed you were nobility or something. What's the big deal?"

Zuko stared at him, and ran a hand through his shaggy hair as he started talking slowly. "Well, my father is Ozai," he scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. Aang felt his eyes widen, accidentally bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, and nodded for him to continue. "I spoke against him in a war meeting, and he did this to me in an Agni Kai," he pointed at the left side of his face. "Then he banished me and told me not to return without the Avatar."

"How long ago was that?" Aang asked, trying to sort through this new information about his friend.

"I had just turned eighteen, so probably two years ago," he guessed, squinting at the fire, his face still a rather interesting shade of scarlet. "My Uncle Iroh traveled with me to a Fire Nation town north of here. After I recovered, I decided I would live the rest of my life as an exile and made a go of it. When Katara showed up six months or so later, he traveled ahead of us to set up a tea shop in Ba Sing Se and we were going to follow him. We encountered some issues," at this he started coughing violently. "Let's just say we were kind of forced to live off the grid before we made it too far. I'm sure if you look at any Fire Nation postings, our faces will be on some wanted posters."

Aang nodded, trying to process everything without making a ruckus. "So you are a banished prince who love Katara, and both of you have some sort of curse you can't talk about where you turn into animals at day or night," he started, noticing Zuko's startled expression. "What? I'm not an idiot. I can put clues together." He continued when Zuko nodded at him. "You aren't supposed to return home without the Avatar, a being whom nobody has seen nor heard of in a century until today." Aang was quiet for a minute before he started laughing, and Zuko finally joined in.

"What if we focus on getting Appa, then find a way to break your curse before you return home with the Avatar and your girlfriend? We can give Ozai the surprise of his life," Aang wiped his eyes when he had the breath to talk again, giddy at the prospect of ending the hundred-year war.

Zuko leaned back, resting his head on the wolf's body. He starred up at the starry night and admitted, "that sounds like a really nice plan, Aang."

They stared into the fire a little longer. "Do you think your father has anything to do with your curse?" Aang was quiet, almost afraid of the answer.

The forest around them was warm with sound, as opposed to the first night they met. Zuko's silence was not uncomfortable.

"I don't know," came his strangled response.

Aang weighed his next words carefully. "We had to hide from soldiers a few days ago. Katara didn't want me to mention it to you, but Zhao told them to look for a hawk. Do you think he has anything to do with your curse?"

Zuko sighed heavily and made a choking noise that made Aang look up at him. He was nodding his head emphatically.

* * *

Hope this satisfies some of your questions. I really loved writing the descriptions in this chapter – I love hiking and thought I'd add more detail in for their travels (Thanks, SilverLining33, for that advice!) Next up, we'll meet back up with everyone's favorite Air Bison!


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reads/reviews! We'll find out more about the curse in later chapters, and we might run into a few more characters soon too ;)

If anyone has ideas for a different title, please let me know! I kind of hate the current one...

Also, if you're a spatial person like me, the map I'm referencing can be found at http (colon-slash-slash) bit (period) ly (slash) 1Ad1A3p - it's pretty awesome to look at just by itself!

* * *

The next morning while they hiked and the hawk kept watch for them overhead, Aang filled Katara in on Zuko's reaction teased her about her princely boyfriend. "How could you not tell me I've been making dinner for _royalty _most nights this week_?"_

"Hey now, Aang, I would barely call what you make _dinner."_ They bantered back and forth about princes and cooking duty. Late in the morning, the hawk landed on Katara's leather armguard and squawked happily.

Aang worried his lip between his teeth and glanced at Katara. "Doesn't sound like there's danger."

"No," she agreed, tipping her head to the side in speculation. "But there's something he's excited about."

By noon they had crested a rather formidable ridge and saw why the hawk was so eager. The Abbey sat on a wide mesa on the opposite side of a river, its white walls gleaming in the sun. Aang studied how they were going to get to its large round gate. He could see stairs cut into the grey stone, as well as a wide flat road with switchbacks up the low mesa from a boat landing in the river below. Aang ached for a way to simply float across the gorge.

"Thank Tui and La," Katara broke his train of thought. "I'm getting really tired of your 'Essence of Earth' Stew, or whatever you call it."

After ribbing each other on cooking expertise, they turned to a more serious topic. They spent most of their descent debating whether or not to go public with the news of the Avatar's return. Aang wanted to come forward immediately, but finally agreed with Katara that they had enough of the Fire Nation to dodge without attracting even more attention. She promised that she and Zuko would stand by him even after he went public. A little embarrassed, he told her about his promise to Zuko to help them break the curse the night prior. She stopped in front of him and threw her arms around him in thanks.

* * *

The limestone stairs leading up the mesa were sturdy, and Katara was glad for the shortcut from the switchbacks. Although Aang had taken the pack for most of the morning, she was a sweaty panting mess by the time they made it to the large circular gate, and Aang wasn't much better. The gates were already wide open, and they staggered into the courtyard.

Almost immediately, a monster bellowed from under a tree along the western wall. Katara's heart jumped, and the hawk on her shoulder squawked in surprise, beating his wings to make himself look larger and more threatening. Aang, on the other hand, perked up and trotted across the courtyard, flinging his arms around the huge Air Bison's head.

The nuns who were outside stirring great vats with their sleeves tied back quickly dropped their tools and gathered to see the airbender. Even the Mother Superior came out to greet him as he scratched the bison's belly.

"We were worried about you," she told Aang. "We knew that we should have sent Appa onto the Northern Air Temple as you requested, but Sister Imōto convinced me to wait." She motioned toward a dazed young nun who had emerged from one of the rooms along the outer wall carrying a full basket of berries and grasses. "If you ask me, I think she wanted to keep your air bison for herself," Mother Superior stage-whispered as soon as the woman came within hearing distance.

Sister Imōto's face and neck took on an interesting pattern of red splotches under her habit, but she set her basket down next to Aang and held out a handful of berries that the great beast licked up. Katara wondered how a woman, really a girl not older than herself, took the habit at such a remote Abbey. She stood back, grimy and tired from the journey, and also overwhelmed at the first interaction with others outside of the forest in months.

"Don't worry, Katara!" Aang called. "Appa's completely harmless. Aren't you boy?"

Katara was reminded of a boy and his dog, and strode up to the air bison before that painful twinge in her heart could worm its way deep enough to make her cry.

"Hello Appa," she murmured, stroking the shaggy course fur near his snout. He had obviously been groomed during Aang's absence, and said as much to the young sister who was still standing nearby with the treats for Appa. She kept her head down as she thanked Katara for noticing, and continued to pet Appa as well.

Aang chattered at the shy Sister Imōto while Katara stepped away. It was early evening by this point, and she had only and hour or two before the sun set.

The Mother Superior tapped her elbow and offered to have another nun show her to her room for the night. Katara accepted. She bid Aang good night, and followed one of the Sisters to a small room in a corner of the second floor of the main structure with her small pack and the hawk resting on her leather shoulder guard.

The hawk fluttered around the room to look for a comfortable perch while she removed her leather arm guards and poured some tepid water into the small basin near the door. Walls and a roof were a luxury she had almost forgotten after months of bathing in icy mountain streams and sitting out under the searing Earth Kingdom sun. She dipped her hands in the basin and shuddered at the temperature, wishing she could have had a certain Firebender warm the water for her. _Don't think on that,_ she chastised herself. _You are surrounded by four walls and a roof overhead. No nosy airbenders around._ She smirked at the thought, and was interrupted by a knock at the door.

The sister brought her a modest dinner of rice and fruit and vegetables. She accepted the meal and asked the sister not to disturb her until morning, ignoring her raised eyebrows. She faked a yawn, and the sister told her she would inform the others. After she shut the door and returned to the meal, she wondered if the meatless meal was Aang's doing and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. A thought flashed through her mind of her carnivorous brother and the vegetarian airbender arguing about meal planning, but she stopped exploring badgermole tunnels that would only make her miserable. Katara saved half of the food, rearranging it to make it look more presentable. It was a hard task – even without meat it was so much better than that wretched soup.

Katara spent the rest of daylight snooping around the room. She threw open the shutter in the window and was greeted with a view of a large peak to the north of the Abbey. She was on the wrong side of the building to track the sun, but she guessed she still had half an hour before her transformation. Shuffling through the small desk in the corner, she triumphantly found some paper and a pen. She jotted out a quick note to Zuko while watching the waning light through her window and petting the hawk absentmindedly. She left a piece of paper out for him and packed the rest. The letters they had left one another at the beginning of their cursed year had been written as tightly as possible, and they had even completely filled in the margins for new notes. She spun around the room, giddy at the possibility of more letters.

_I'm turning into a nutcase,_ she thought as she stripped out of her crusty traveling clothes. She would ask if she could wash them in the morning, but she had a surprise to plan now.

* * *

When Zuko turned back into a human, he found himself sitting on a firm straw mattress inside, and a scantily clad Katara climbed into his lap. He hadn't seen her this happy in months and was quite please when she wasted no time in kissing him firmly on the lips and whispering "I love-" before turning into a wolf in his lap. He disentangled himself from the excited canine, and began exploring the room to see what she had found. The wolf curled up at the foot of the bed, watching him lazily with her blue eyes.

He read her note set up by the water basin, thrilled to have her words in his hands once more. He was relieved to read that Aang had promised his help to Katara as well. Having the long-lost Avatar in his corner put Zuko in a very good mood.

He wrote her a response that he thought she would enjoy, scarfed down the rest of her dinner, and then plopped on top of the bed, fantasizing about a certain waterbender while playing with the necklace he kept around his wrist.

The wolf watched him through cracked eyes, and he knew that even if they didn't remember anything from their animal forms, her human awareness still lingered somewhere within. _She knows me too well for it to just be animal instinct or whatever. _He sat up and turned to lean against her warm furry body.

Near the end of the night, he also opened the window to watch the sky lighten and prepared for their next few seconds together.

* * *

Katara returned to her human form to find a mostly-naked firebender wrapped around her. He said nothing, just spooned her for the few seconds they had together. She relaxed, her back warmed by his chest. Once dawn truly broke, she roused herself from the bed and saw the steaming water, as well as the note he had left for her. She melted a little while reading the note and laughed out loud when she read the final line.

_P.S. Please pack my clothes for me if we leave today._

* * *

While they secretly plotted how to find out more on curses and training the Avatar, they helped the nuns with their perfume-making business in the mornings; Katara transferred the liquids into new vats, and Aang wafted the fragrance away from the courtyard, giving everyone a reprieve from the strong fragrance. With this arrangement, the nuns were happy to let the travelers stay.

Sister Imōto continued to care for Appa, and was thrilled when Aang offered to show her how to put his reins on his horns and taught her different commands for making him fly. They flew south for an afternoon to picnic over the Mo Ce Sea, much to the Mother Superior's disapproval.

A theory that the spirit world had something to do with the curse scratched at the back of Aang's mind. He scoured the Abbey's library for clues, and racked his memory for obscure "Spirit World" lessons the monks taught. He knew how to respect it, but wasn't sure what to do when Spirits did not respect the physical world in return.

Aang casually asked Mother Superior if she knew of a good place to find spiritual information. She seemed a little befuddled at an airbender asking for her expertise on this issue, but told him that she had heard of a library in the Si Wong desert, and mentioned another young man who had stayed with them and gone searching for it months before.

"I haven't seen or heard from him since," she cautioned. "And I don't actually know if it exists, but legend has it, the caretaker is a Spirit who loves knowledge and making it available to all people."

After the first night, Aang quietly knocked on Zuko's door in the dead of the night. Aang let him in on any new theories or information he had gathered during the afternoon and continued to receive only half-answers from the firebender. Katara and Zuko left notes for one another, happy to have pen and paper again, so Aang didn't have to fill them in on the same plans over and over.

Aang took to wandering the gardens that seamlessly bled into the surrounding forest. He had a responsibility to the world as the Avatar, but had a firm feeling in his gut that helping Katara and Zuko break their curse would greatly help. Not only was it more difficult to plan anything with them – an argument about where to go next was taking _days_ to settle, as they listened to counterpoints and responded in kind – but they were both strong benders who could teach him. Above all, they were his friends and he had promised to help them.

He imagined returning to the Southern Air Temple with Katara and Zuko to consult with the Elders, but was only met with a vision of the Elders whisking him away from his friends' plight to master the elements and drive the Fire Nation back or further the Air Nomad's own position in the world. The fear that he would be used as a weapon or a tool left him faint, and he crouched with his head between his knees.

"Good afternoon, Aang," a grandfatherly voice spoke from above.

Aang, still crouching, looked up to see an old man wearing out-of-date Fire Nation robes. Half of his long white hair was pulled back into a regal topknot, and pinned in place with a flame piece.

Aang scrambled to his feet and opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to remember how it worked. "Have I completely lost it?" he meant to say something more profound, but what did one say when an elderly Fire Nation nobleman confronts you at the edge of a religious order's garden, hidden away in the Earth Kingdom mountains?

The man did not seem amused. "We have much to speak of, now that you know who you are."

"Sir," Aang bowed to him, wondering where this man's bodyguards were, if Katara and Zuko and the nuns were all right, and how he knew his name. "I think you may be mistaken."

"Young Avatar, I _know_ that I am not."

Aang whipped his head up, and inspected the man. Something seemed familiar about him, and he recalled the Avatar rotunda at the South Pole, where the likeness of each Avatar was kept, which young monks took turns cleaning weekly.

"Avatar Roku," Aang thought of wiping the dust and lemur droppings from the stone version of this man just weeks before his journey, trying hard not to smile, and bowed again in respect, fist to palm. "I guess I do have a lot of questions."

Roku motioned for him to walk with him, and began telling him about his time as Avatar, growing up with Sozin and realizing his dark ambition. He finished his story as they came to the end of the path near a reflecting pool. A stone circle, halfway sunk into the earth and large enough for a man to walk under framed the glass-like pool and the vivid reds and oranges of the trees beyond it. The reflection of the slope in the pool made Aang think of a large blaze, and he even caught the faint scent of smoke on the breeze. The two men kneeled side by side, looking through the arch as though nature were a painting.

"This is why you must master the other three elements and harness your full potential to stop the Fire Nation before it does anything rash."

Aang jolted at this last comment. "Roku, it's been over one hundred years since your death. Sozin already attempted to wipe out the Airbenders before he died," he said softly.

Roku exhaled and shut his eyes. "I was afraid that my regrets slowed the wheel of reincarnation, but I had no idea it was that much. What has happened?"

Aang brought him up to speed on what he knew of current events. The Airbenders cowered in their mountains and their temples. The Southern Water Tribe was scattered, the citizens avoiding notice from the Fire Nation; the North hid behind their walls of ice. The Earth Kingdom was slowly crumbling, one long military campaign after another. The Fire Nation was also tired of the war, but well-crafted propaganda oiled their war machine. He ended with his own story, and how he had met up with his new friends with their strange curse.

Aang glanced over at Roku when he was finished. He sat ramrod straight and he was looking through the archway. "That is an interesting conundrum," he finally said. "You said the Lady is a waterbender?"

Aang nodded and turned his head forward as well. "She is, and has already began teaching me forms. Prince Zuko has also helped me with Firebending. I just need to find an earthbending master, and I am well onto my way. First, though, I need to help them break their curse. I think a spirit has something to do with it, but I'm not sure where to start." The trees did not shake from breeze, but he could smell the smoke more strongly now. A single brown leaf floated from a tree and landed in the pool, sending ripples out to destroy the peace.

"You might be able to access the spirit world; I think you may be correct that the curse was born there," he began, still looking at the pond and the trees. His voice sharpened. "You must go, Aang."

"What?" Aang looked next to him and Roku had vanished. He kept hearing his name echoed repeatedly, and felt a pull from behind his belly button yanking him backward. Aang opened his eyes to a concerned Katara shaking his shoulder and Zuko-hawk screeching in his ear.

He found himself sprawled in the middle of the path where he had put his head down before.

"What was that?" Katara asked him. "You were out – we've been trying to wake you for a while."

"I spoke with Roku," Aang was still a little confused about the whole ordeal.

"Tell me about it later," she said breathlessly, and then looked at something over his shoulder.

Her urgency sent a jolt of fear through his heart, and he slowly turned to see what had her so concerned. A huge white plume of smoke was visible over the ridgeline.

"Aang, we need to move. _Fast,_" Katara was on her feet now, dragging Aang with her.

He was completely off-balance, following her as well as he could. She yelled over her shoulder as they crashed toward the Abbey, filling him in on the situation. The sisters were unsure if the fire was a natural forest fire or a man-made one, but natural fires this large were uncommon this time of year.

"It's directly east of us, so I think we should just be safe and make a run for it," she continued. "Mother Superior assured me that they've dealt with fires like this before."

Aang heard the uncertainty in Katara's voice, and felt his mouth harden into a grim line. He didn't want to leave the nuns to fight the inferno by themselves, but he also didn't want to risk them being found harboring two (really three) Fire Nation fugitives.

When they barreled into the courtyard, the nuns were busy hustling around, handing out shovels and tools to break fire line, and filling huge vats with water. Sister Imōto stood next to Appa's shaggy head, petting his snout and whispering to him in a comforting tone. When she saw Aang and Katara approaching, she straightened.

"I packed your bag, Lady Katara," she efficiently started. "There's also a bag of food and some trinkets to remember us by."

Katara went a little flushed at the mention of her pack. "Um, Sister, there were some extra clothes in my quarters as well," she started.

"They're in your pack as well," Sister Imōto winked at Katara while she stammered her thanks and her face was a dusty rose hue of embarrassment. Aang wasn't sure what to make of it, but turned to Sister Imōto while Katara climbed into the saddle with her hawk companion, and started rifling through her pack.

He took the nun's hands in his own. "Thank you for all of your help, Sister Imōto." He bowed to her, still holding her hands. "I really appreciate it, and before we leave I want to tell you a secret," he hesitated, but forged ahead with his revelation. He bent down to her ear. "The Avatar has returned," he whispered, pulling back to see her brow furrowed in disbelief. He noticed a puddle nearby and discreetly pulled the water up into his hands. If anyone else had spotted him, they might have thought the water was dropping from his hands to the cobblestone. The young sister's eyes were wide at this point, so Aang held a single finger to his lips and concentrated on making a small flame appear at the tip of it as he put it down.

"Have hope," he told her again before climbing on Appa's head and taking off into the afternoon sky, heading west as long as the nuns could see them. He turned around in his perch once they were several hundred feet in the air to talk to Katara.

She was already leaning over the front of the saddle, and didn't wait for him to ask his question. "Let's talk about what we're going to do to protect the nuns from that blaze," she stated, tipping her head in the direction they had come, no room for debate in her voice.

* * *

"Imōto" is what I got when I typed "little sister" into Google translate for Japanese. Please don't throw things at me. Currently rewriting large sections of the next chapter, so it will probably be a little longer until we find out more about this fire!


	5. Chapter 5

**Warning: Graphic Violence/Injury** If you're squeamish, it's about a third of the way into this chapter. **I changed the rating of the story to reflect this.**

* * *

Aang gradually changed their bearing from west to northwest. Once the Abbey, its courtyard, and its sisters preparing to battle the flames vanished behind a peak, he gently tugged at Appa's reins to circle back around the mountains to the north. Flocks of birds flew past them, battling the headwind and screeching out warnings. Aang used his bending to clear the smoke, and scanned the patchwork of orange hotspots dotting the ground. The trees that had been vibrant from the season's change a week before now had small tendrils of orange fire reaching up them, searching for more fuel to burn. Much of the ground cover was still green, Aang noted with relief and a hint of dread. This fire was moving slowly, and burning slowly, but it probably only existed because of a company of Firebenders, hunting him on the ground below.

A flare to the south caught his attention, and he calculated that it was the same area Katara and he had hiked through days before. Katara shouted something garbled to him, and he turned to see her holding the collar of her dress over her nose and mouth, pointing in the direction of the intense flame.

Aang didn't reply; he simply tugged the reins to the right. As they flew through the thick haze, he bent a protective air bubble around Appa.

"I can't believe they're burning the forest just to find me," Aang turned back to Katara, once it was easier to speak within the relative peace of the bubble.

Katara sighed. "I think they might be looking for me and Zuko too. Three birds, one stone, right?" The hawk on her shoulder squawked as though offended, and she patted his head, a smile ghosting her face.

Aang cleared the smoke more often as they neared their destination, and both he and Katara started when they saw the Squad of four firebenders below, fanning their flames on.

He momentarily imagined how the forest would look without the destruction. Autumn was in full swing; they had been rained on several days while trekking west. An ember of rage sparked in his heart. This fire was only this dangerous because of men like the four below who fanned it on, all to drive their little band out of hiding.

"Aang, I have an idea," Katara called. "Fly Appa lower, behind those men."

* * *

After circling them once more to check for more troops in the area, Appa touched down a dozen meters behind the men, who were currently encouraging a towering pine tree to catch fire.

He thought once more of what he was going to say, how they were going to tell the squad that they were leaving the forest and not to look for them there anymore, before setting off south until they were out of sight again. They would offer to take them to the shores of the Mo Ce Sea, to escape the dangerous inferno they had created.

Aang looked to Katara, who held his gaze for a moment before whipping water from the forest itself – the trees and grass, the soil, even the air to build a network of tentacles around their group.

Aang had been impressed with Katara's waterbending before, but now she appeared positively lethal, like a warrior-princess from an old legend. Her hair and her cloak blew wildly in the winds the fire whipped up. He inhaled deeply, calling a gust from the burning forest toward the firebenders to attract their attention. As the flames began turning back on the squad, they turned to run and stopped when they saw the two fierce benders and their animal companions.

Aang slowly changed his stance and released his breath, forming a protective bubble around their clearing. Time seemed to slow; the crackle and intense heat of the fire seemed distant, and they all stared each other down. Before Aang could announce their terms, one of the firebenders broke out of his trance and kicked at Aang to attack.

His reaction was swift; the attack fanned the ember of rage in Aang's heart into full-blown fury. Without thinking, Aang compressed the air he held into a jet and forced it all at the soldier. The firebender was thrown backwards, and had a look of combined terror and shock on his face before he made impact with a slowly burning tree, hitting his head hard and slumping to the ground.

The quick reaction snapped the other three soldiers out of their daze. Two of the other firebenders came at Aang, one cut off by Appa roaring and charging him, and the hawk diving at his helmet, denting it several times. Aang barely registered that, or how Katara engaged the other firebender in combat as he began his fight with the last firebender. His moves were quick and sharp, and he punched out fireballs that Aang had to flip and duck around to avoid being singed. Aang waited for a moment when the soldier staggered ever so slightly from exhaustion, and began shoot jets at air at him, trying to push him off balance.

* * *

Katara, shocked at Aang's outburst, whipped at the firebender closest to her to draw him into a fight before he could attack Aang. She figured if she could take him out quickly, then she could disengage another one.

He circled her slowly at first, as if to look for a flaw in her form. After training with firebenders in her youth, she instinctively knew how to block some of the basic forms taught at the academy. She almost rolled her eyes at his patience and studious demeanor, but since Aang had dropped his air-shield, it had become harder for her to form and maintain her water forms in the midst of the blaze.

He slid his left foot back, and she recognized it as the beginning step to a normally impressive flare-kick. When he lifted off the ground, she froze a sheet of ice under him to sabotage his footing. She ducked under the flame that shot from his foot beautifully, and moved close to knock him out, but did not anticipate his right ankle slipping under him. His leg folded like paper, and Katara watched in horror as he tried to get up, wondering why his lower leg suddenly had an extra joint when he stuck it up. She swallowed down her sickness and instead of kneeling to knock him out, she removed his helmet, and began consoling him. A movement caught her eye – the firebender who had been trying to wrangle Appa strode toward her with a flaming fist. Katara could only think of the man next to her and the fastest way she could heal his leg. She formed an ice blade and held it to his throat.

She yelled to get the other's attention. "Take that unconscious one to safety and tell your commanding officer that you are wasting your time burning this forest. You will find your companion here," she moved her icepick closer to the man's pulse, "at the mouth of the Pohuai River in the Mo Ce Sea in three days."

The words cascaded out of her mouth before she had fully devised a plan, but now that they were out she allowed an internal sigh at how good that plan actually sounded. She would have time to set the leg correctly, and they might be able to get some information from a captive.

The firebenders still standing gaped at her, and the soldier in her grasp whimpered in pain, wincing his eyes shut. Aang whistled, and Appa landed behind her. The firebender who had been fighting Aang still had flames shooting from his fist, but stared in shock at their friend's leg. Katara wrapped it in water as discreetly as she could, freezing it to staunch the blood flow while she and Aang hoisted him up into the saddle.

Once they were settled, Aang called out, "Yip-yip," and they took flight with their accidental hostage, leaving the three other firebenders in the clearing below. Katara looked back to see the one Appa and the hawk had fought shake his friend and motion toward the unconscious one under the burning tree. She said a small prayer for the three of them, swallowed her horror at the turn of events in the clearing, and turned to heal her new patient as best she could with the remaining hours of daylight.

* * *

Aang sat in stony silence during their flight toward the sea. He berated himself for not speaking soon enough, and lamented harming the first bender. He kept a close eye on the hazy horizon, hoping they could find a secluded place to camp before dark, and before Katara and Zuko turned. He heard the occasional cry of pain or murmur of comfort from the saddle behind him, but Katara said nothing to him during the long flight.

Just as the sunset's red hue deepened, Appa gently landed on a rocky stretch of shoreline. There was a great swath of untouched forest to the north, and large rock arches littered the dark beach. Aang murmured thanks to Appa, and stood to stretch. He looked back at a white-faced Katara readjusting her splint on the firebender's leg and encasing it in ice once again.

With the sun already halfway below the horizon and her patient passed out from the pain, Katara tossed her pack out of the saddle while rattling off instructions for his care. "Get Zuko to help you lay him on the ground, and find something, maybe a pack, to prop his leg up. If he's unconscious like this all night, refreeze his cast after it's melted. Since he's a firebender, I'm guessing it will be pretty quickly."

Aang felt weary, as though his conversation with Roku had been weeks before, as opposed to half a day. Katara kept listing off things for him to do while she eyed the horizon. "You need to fill Zuko in on everything that happened today. I doubt this guy is going to be in a place where we can get answers from him tonight, but if he's awake and talking, Zuko should try to get as much information as possible."

Aang listened to her, but felt like his head was wrapped in cotton. He watched her talk, hoping it would help the words stick better. She had soot smeared on her face and forearm, and her hair was sticking out wildly. Her face still looked dazed, and beneath her instructions, she seemed shocked. She kept fidgeting, and he realized that she must be even more exhausted than he was. He laid a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. "Don't worry about us. Zuko and I will take care of this guy."

She smiled weakly, and clapped her hand over his. "Thanks, Aang." She ruffled his hair and took off sprinting across the beach.

Aang squinted in the dim light and saw the hawk tumble off Katara's shoulder and turn into Zuko. Katara ran head-on into his chest, and his arms wrapped around her. Aang blushed and looked away when he realized Zuko was just wearing his underwear.

He turned his warm face and began collecting as much driftwood as he could see in the dimness. The sky was overcast, and he was hesitant to break out any firebending in case their patient-hostage saw him. He brought an armload back to Appa, and rubbed his cheek.

"Yeah, I'm sorry boy. I'm just waiting for Zuko to get back to help me move your passenger, and then you can get belly rubs all night," he promised his air bison.

Although night had truly settled an hour before, there was still no sign of Zuko. He hopped up in the saddle to examine the prisoner. His hair was black and pulled back into the typical Fire Nation topknot. He was young – probably a year or so older than Aang – and drooling slightly. Even in the cool night air, sweat dotted his brow. Aang sat opposite him, and imagined what steps the firebender had taken in his life to end up burning down a forest. The memory of the burning forest and fleeing animals cast a dark cloud over his thoughts, and he had to shake himself out of it.

Aang began unloading the rest of their baggage – Imōto had packed several baskets of food, in addition to his small travel pack he had left at the Abbey. He began setting up stones to form a fire circle on the beach deep in thought, when Zuko startled him.

* * *

Zuko was upset. Sometimes when he transitioned back to human, he could feel some lingering emotion from his hawk form. Most of the time, he felt nothing other than a sort of annoyed boredom with existence, followed by joy at seeing Katara.

This particular night, though, he was on edge. His heart raced as though they had been fighting or running. They were on a beach, he was feeling vaguely anxious, and his girlfriend was throwing herself at his chest. Katara's body shook with her sobs, and he didn't even care that he was barely dressed in the brisk air. There were so many things he wanted to do for her, but only one that would help. He wrapped his arms around her and made soothing noises for their short seconds before she turned into a very worked-up wolf. He sat down, pulling the wolf into his side and hugged her. They both calmed down, taking deeper breaths that sounded less like cries. He stroked the wolf's coat, not sure who needed to be comforted more at the moment.

_This is what suck the most about this curse_, he thought. _I have no idea why my girlfriend is upset, and I can't even help her with it. _ He stopped for a moment, and cracked a small smile at his next thought. _And I never thought I would want to deal with a crying girl again._

Once the wolf stopped licking his face, he grabbed the pack and dressed. He hated not knowing what had happened in the short hours since dawn. They had to leave the Abbey, obviously, and Katara and their pack had both smelled strongly of smoke. A sickening feeling dropped in his stomach, and he lit a flame in his palm to follow Katara's footprints back from the direction they came.

The wolf trotted beside him, and something loosened in his chest when he made out a hulking shape of what could only be Appa, and the smaller form of Aang building a fire pit.

"Aang," he said. "What happened today? Katara was crying and we're definitely not at the Abbey or in the mountains anymore."

Aang quickly filled him in on what had happened that day, beginning with the plume of smoke they had seen from the Abbey. As he spoke about how their original plan turned violent with the firebenders to get them to stop spreading the fire and Katara's efforts to heal their hostage's leg, Zuko understood why Katara had collapsed onto him.

"So now we have to take care of him, and if you could help me get him out of Appa's saddle, that would be great," Aang finished.

Zuko rocked back on his heels in shocked silence for a moment and noticed the feel of the grainy dark sand through the bottoms of his shoes. _That broken leg sounds gnarly. No wonder she was so upset._

He glanced up to see an expectant Aang and shook himself. "Yeah, what do you think is the best way to get him down?"

Ultimately, Aang used his airbending to help move the unconscious soldier without jostling his leg. Zuko had a hold of his shoulder, and Aang held his good leg, using an air pocket to cushion the broken one in its splint and dripping ice cast.

They set him up on the beach like Katara had recommended, and Zuko placed his pack under the splint before saying a prayer to Agni for the soldier.

Aang showed him the fire pit and, in a low voice, explained that he wasn't about to do any sort of bending other than air when their hostage was around. Zuko shot a small fireball at the kindling.

While Zuko built the fire large enough to keep their hostage comfortable, Aang took Appa's saddle off and rubbed him down. Zuko stepped up and stroked the fur above the air bison's eyes.

"Hey buddy, I've heard a lot about you," he said, uncertain how to interact with an air bison. Appa licked his scar with a giant pink tongue, forcing his hair into disarray. Deciding this was probably a welcoming sign, Zuko stepped back and tried to tame his hair back down.

"Aang, how far away was your fight?" he thought of ambushes in the night in their exposed campsite.

"We flew for an hour or two in an air current that blew us quite a ways east," Aang replied, his eyes reflecting Zuko's concern. "If you need to sleep, I'll take first watch."

Zuko shook his head. Aang looked as though he was ready to topple over at any moment, and he started to feel as though he were missing a piece of the story. "You sleep. I'm too wired, and I can smother the fire easily enough if something is out there."

Aang bowed in gratitude and curled up next to Appa's tail. He murmured and sighed, and Zuko tried not to think about what had happened to make the airbender whimper in his sleep, and Katara sob so uncontrollably. He wished that he could at least stand with her during those horrible times, and also pushed this desire from his mind. He wished Aang would wake up so that he would have someone other than his thoughts for company.

He sat with his back to the fire, the sea, and his strange companions, sitting up to watch the sky lighten over the eastern mountains, his faithful wolf beside him. As she turned into the woman he loved, he cradled her in front of his chest and pressed kisses to the side of her neck, wondering what it would be like if their curse was lifted and he could hold her like this all through the night, and they could watch the sun crest the horizon together. The first ray of light shone peaked over the mountain range, and he was gone.

* * *

Zoinks, this was kind of depressing. Good news though: I cut out a section of this chapter to keep the length in the ballpark I'm shooting for, which means... less work on the next chapter and most likely another quick update :)

Also, I totally made up the whole Pohuai River thing based on the map mentioned in the Chapter 1 Author Note. I will probably be doing that a lot more as this story keeps going, because I'm a huge imaginary geography nerd.


	6. Chapter 6

This chapter was absurdly hard to figure out - I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I think it's about as good as it's going to get. Hope everybody has a good week!

* * *

The absence of Zuko's warmth at her back shocked her awake. His warm kisses had made her drowsy; a wonderful, lazy feeling one misses when they have had no need for sleep for over a year. Now alert, Katara took stock of her surroundings. Aang snored, curled up in a ball next to Appa. Her patient was also still asleep, near the fire. Fog from the sea shrouded the black sand, but she could make out the eerie forms of rock arches in the distance. She shivered and pulled her threadbare cloak tighter. The edges were fraying, and she did her best to resist worrying the dark brown and green threads between her fingers. She wondered if she could somehow talk her brother into bringing her a Water Tribe parka, if she saw him soon.

Standing and stretching, she gathered water from the sea, and ran through a few warm-up forms while trying to clear her mind. Watching the soldier land on her ice and shatter his leg had shaken her. She had never hurt anybody so seriously before; as far as she knew, she had never killed anyone either. There were always mistakes – the bumps on the head that were in the wrong spot, or the chokeholds that lasted just a little too long – but she had never stuck around long enough to find out if every man she knocked unconscious over the years woke up again.

She performed one last set before swirling a few gallons of water into a great frozen ball that she carried to the young sleeping soldier and dropped in the sand. While she unwrapped his leg and encased it in a glowing orb of water, she sang and hummed Fire Nation lullabies Iroh had taught her when he first took her into his care as his foster daughter.

She closed her eyes and focused her attention on the leg she needed to heal. The afternoon before she had repositioned the bone fragments in their rightful places, and now she focused on encouraging it all to knit back together. It was no longer bleeding, although it was still swollen to twice its normal size. When she started feeling weary, she gently formed an ice cast and looked up to see a very awake Fire Nation soldier propped up on his elbows, staring at her and his leg with narrowed golden-brown eyes.

"What are you doing?" his voice was grating and demanding. Exhausted from the healing session, Katara had expected at least a thankful tone, and decided she hated teenage boys. Zuko was no longer a teenager, and neither was Sokka. She would even give Aang a pass seeing as he was a reincarnation of a very powerful ten thousand year-old spirit. So she stood firm in her dislike of snotty, ungrateful firebending teenage _boys_.

She arched an eyebrow at the boy. "That leg should heal faster now that everything has been put back in place."

At the reminder that she had helped him, he put his chin to his chest in a poor imitation of a bow.

"I thank you, peasant. Now return me to my command, and I shall see what I can do to mitigate repercussions," he said loftily.

Katara didn't know whether to box his ears or break down in tears of laughter and counted to ten while clenching her jaw. Her sense of peace and patience from the early morning bending completely evaporated. _Of course _the leg she broke, and was now throwing all of her healing abilities, knowledge, and effort at to make whole again – _that_ leg – belonged to this little prick. He sounded like he thought he was royalty instead of a common soldier. _Zuko is going to have so much fun with you_, Katara thought.

When her ten seconds were over, she tilted her head back to stare down her nose at him. She inspected the trim on his uniform, confident she had the symbols and rankings straight. "Private, I told the rest of your squad where and when they can expect to find you. My guess is by the time they get a rescue team to the rendezvous point –with the messenger bird travel and the time to deploy – you're looking at three days before you see another Fire Nation troop. So you can either spend those three days playing nice with us, fed, and with a healer who will see to that leg, or we can drop you off on your beach in a couple of hours on Appa here." She leaned over his leg and narrowed her eyes at him. "It would be a rough few days waiting there without food or water, or even a proper cast."

He huffed, crossed his arms and turned his head to face the sea.

Katara stood. The lingering fog weakened the mid-morning sun into a pale orb and blanketed their camp in soggy grey. Aang had the fire roaring again, and she walked the few steps to stand by it and warm her hands. He gave her a half-smile and a significant look at their hostage, and then lifted the lid on the pot in the roaring fire to stir the contents. Katara eyed it in suspicion, but dug through her pack for their chipped crockery and mismatched chopsticks. The hawk flew back from where he had been hunting or preening, and settled on her shoulder.

"Earth Stew?" she asked Aang as the lid clanged back into place.

"It's more like a porridge – I found some nuts and berries on the bushes over there," he pointed toward the edge of the forest, "and used some of our supplies."

At his reminder, she rifled through the packs from Sister Imōto. There were three wicker baskets large enough to strap to a back, one of which was filled with Appa's favorite berries. Another was filled with rice, and the third had some bread, dried fruit, and dried meat. Knowing the bison would probably finish off the basket of berries before they took Private Pinchy-Pants to his rescue point, Katara inspected the basket weaving and thought about ways to waterproof it as a battle supply or emergency drinking water. While pondering this, she snagged a sheet of jerky from the pack.

_Bless you, Sister Imōto, and may you join the sainthood after living a long and prosperous life and dying quietly in your sleep,_ Katara thought as she pulled it apart and alternated between snacking on it and feeding small portions to her friend on her shoulder.

She looked out at the sea and thought about what the Private might know. They only had three days with him to find out why Zhao hunted them so intensely, and then hopefully they could avoid any troops for a while. Her element was water, and her specialty was seeping into unexpected places; give her enough time and she would douse a bonfire, etch out a canyon, or drown a man.

Aang brought her out of her thoughts by passing her a bowl of porridge and taking another to their captive. He nestled their bowls in the sand and helped prop the soldier against a pack before plopping down next to him, eating out of a mug with a hairline crack that leaked. Katara joined them, the hawk still perched on her shoulder.

"I'm Aang," he said once they were all settled. "What's your name?"

"You may address me as Private Tatsuo," he replied stiffly.

Katara snorted. "Only if you address _me_ as Master Katara and Hawky here as 'His Royal Highness.'"

Tatsuo's face turned red as he recognized her name. _Good,_ she thought. _Maybe we can get somewhere._

"So Tatsuo, why were you burning that forest?" she asked as though she were asking for the weather. She picked at the bloated grains of rice with her chopsticks.

He frowned and stared down at his bowl. "Commander Zhao ordered it."

She and Aang shared an annoyed look. "We get that," she said slowly. "But why did he order it? Was it just to find us?"

Tatsuo glanced at Aang quickly before looking back down at his porridge. "He was upset that the airbender got away."

Aang scoffed. "He's had to have prisoners escape before."

"No, he hasn't," Tatsuo looked Aang directly in the eye, a slightly alarmed look on his face. "No prisoner has escaped from the Pohuai fortress before, and that's just part of it."

"What's the other part of it?" Katara pressed.

Tatsuo turned back to her, his face twisting into something ugly. "_Lady_ Katara? If it's rumors you want, I've heard plenty about you, you know," he sneered. "Tales of a witch who tricked a prince into loving her and dishonoring himself. Where do you have him holed up now?"

The hawk spread his wings and screeched menacingly at the boy, who fell off his elbows, spilling porridge down his front. Katara saw red as she patted the hawk's wings to sooth him, and lightly placed her hand on Tatsuo's cast. "Those aren't the rumors I'm interested. Why don't you think about that beach retreat for one we talked about earlier?"

She stood, unclasped her cloak, and jerked her elbow up so that the hawk would stay behind while she stormed right into the sea. Onto the sea would be a more accurate description, as she waterbent herself far from shore, far from cruel words that made her want to do cruel things. She surfed on a board she made of ice, and her tears mingled with the salt water.

* * *

Aang watched Katara's wave recede from the shoreline and swallowed the rage he felt for the soldier. He had finished his porridge, and wiped Tatsuo's off his tunic.

Tatsuo was lying completely flat on the ground and his cheeks turned pink with humiliation. Aang felt flat, as though he had used up too many emotions the day before. He was already counting down the days and hours left with this annoying firebender.

"Are you still hungry?" Aang asked.

"No," he replied, but his cheeks flushed even more. "But I do have to pee."

Aang said nothing, but helped Tatsuo stand and lean on him to walk into the surf. He kept a cushion of air around his broken leg, and when he was done, they hobbled back to Tatsuo's sand nest. He pulled at his tunic, and dark grains fell out the bottom. Aang could have offered to use airbending to blow them off his skin and out of his clothes, but he wasn't feeling particularly charitable to the Private. Aang sat cross-legged nearby.

"You're wrong," Aang broke the silence. "About Katara and Zuko."

The private grunted in discomfort as he rearranged himself on the ground. "Where's Prince Zuko then? Did he bring you to her and leave again?"

Aang shrugged a shoulder and shook out his shoulders. "It's not like that – I can't exactly tell you, but it's not like that."

The hawk flew over from where he had perched on Appa's left horn and sat on Aang's shoulder. The firebender was quiet, and Aang found his mind wandering, and it soon settled in a meditation trance again. This was nothing like his meeting with Roku.

He was sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath, and his back was sore as though he had fallen. An angry man stood over him – he had either harmed him or was going to. History and emotions muddled in this state, as if they had traveled too far to be crisp. Even the forest and the sky rolled together in a fog, as if the horizon had not been conceived yet. Everything was blurry and out of focus except for the man above him and the tall lemur-like spirit creeping behind him.

The spirit passed into the man, possessing his body. The spirit's furry features overtook half of the face with large floppy ears and whiskers. The half-human face twisted in rage, yelling something. When the spirit released his hold and jumped back out, the man ran away with his new ears, his yellow eye, and his claw-like hands, shrieking in terror.

He still lay on the ground with his weak lungs and sore back. He was hypnotized, not horrified, by the transformation. Everything snarled and swirled together, as though he were in that hazy space that would someday sharpen into the boundary between the earth and the heavens.

The heavens. The white pillar of light extended up to the heavens. It's a bridge that leads there, or somewhere else out of reach, somewhere he fears, something he fears. The spirits marched in a line. The line vanished into the light. There was respect, or a promise, or hope that the light would vanquish the darkness in man, and then he was falling again, falling and failing. Falling into the void, that indiscernible line between heaven and earth. Suddenly he righted himself and balanced on that fine line and walked it as though it were a high wire like they had at the Southern Air Temple. Air Nomads. His name was Aang, and he knew this because somebody was calling it from far away, but if he could just stay on this wire one more moment he might figure something out, he might find an answer to a question he couldn't quite remember, he might just–

His eyes flew open. "I'm fine," he gasped. "Just zoned out in meditation while that one called my human lineage into question," he pointed at Tatsuo.

Katara gave him a searching look. "Okay, Aang," she said slowly as she helped him stand. "It's just that we haven't had a lot of time to _talk_, you know?" she leaned in closer and whispered in his ear, "I think your eyes _glowed_."

Aang stepped back, startled, but added that fact to the list of everything else they would discuss once they dropped off their hostage. He still wasn't sure how to remember his vision from that day, let alone describe it to somebody else. "I think it can wait," he replied, not wanting the soldier to wake up to listen to a conversation about Avatar visions.

Their guest was asleep again, and the position of the sun told him he had been meditating for hours. Katara wrung her hair out and bent as much water from it and her clothes as she could, but ultimately took Aang's offer of a spare set of clothing while hers dried by the fire.

"I hate teenage boys," she blurted once they settled by the fire.

Aang knew the sting showed on his face, and she looked at the soldier before speaking softly. "It's not like you're a normal teenage boy."

He smirked. "He's just a bed of panda lilies, isn't he?"

Katara agreed and glanced at the sleeping firebender in question. "I want a detailed report of Zuko's first interaction with that little shit," she said. "If he doesn't throw fire at something, I will be surprised, but I also won't put it past him to actually talk to the kid."

"I think I can do that," Aang smiled fully for the first time in a day, and thought of something fun that wouldn't incriminate them in the eyes of their captive if he woke. "Can you teach me those songs you were humming this morning?

* * *

Tatsuo woke for the second time that day to the sounds of lullabies from his childhood. They made him homesick in a way he had never felt before. He wasn't sure what home even meant to him any more. It wasn't the Stronghold, where he had been stationed since completing his training a year before. It also wasn't with his parents, when his father threw himself into his business and forever improving their social standing from the merchant class and his mother stared out windows on the days she rose from bed.

As the lullabies continued, he thought maybe his homesickness wasn't for a place, but for a time. Before his older brother had returned from Ba Sing Se in a ceramic urn. Before he had even left, when they would run wild on the island of Shu Jing and make dares to knock on the great Lord's gate, which were never followed through. He wondered if Toru and he had swallowed their fear and asked to learn the way of the sword where they would be. Would he still be alive? Would their mother smile? Would they finally visit Ember Island and rub elbows with the posh nobility there like his father had promised those days?

The lullabies stopped and he swallowed down his thick tears before they spilled onto his face. The waterbender mentioned checking on his leg before sundown, so he evened his breathing and feigned sleep while she melted the remaining cast and placed her glowing water on his leg. His captors confused him; the longer he laid here in the dark sand, the more he suspected the waterbender had taken him primarily to help heal him. He had to admit that his leg felt far better than it had the day before, and they treated him well.

Thinking about their hospitality, he wondered if he should open his eyes and apologize to the waterbender for what he said earlier. The thought of admitting his shame, however, made him feel shame for his disloyalty to the Fire Nation.

_The Fire Nation is sharing its glories with the rest of the world, _he recited internally. _Those who stand in the way of our lustrous Fire Lord stand in the way of progress._

He would not apologize. He should not have to apologize for being right, for what he was, especially to one whose goal would be to bring down everything he stood for.

The waterbender finished her healing and remade the ice cast while he stared at the sky. If she noticed his open eyes, she said nothing and bustled around the campsite until the sun started sinking.

He received the shock of his life when a man who was obviously Fire Nation joined the campfire and helped build it higher. He greeted the airbender as though they were friends and asked about him. A grey wolf followed him out of the forest, staring Tatsuo down as it padded over to the fire.

"He's awake," the Airbender said, surprising Tatsuo. He thought he would have said something earlier.

The man walked over and sat next to Tatsuo, bringing his arms around his knees loosely in front of him and stared at the fire. Tatsuo looked at him in shock. Not so much the man, but his scar. He was speechless for a minute, then thought sourly how he probably owed Lee and Ryu an apology for not believing them when they said they saw the banish prince of the Fire Nation in the woods a few weeks ago.

How does one address banished royalty? Tatsuo sure wasn't going to be rude to him, because who knew if Prince Zuko would regain his birthright and someday take the throne. Then he would remember the lowly Private with the broken leg on that beach those years before and he would have to deal with the fallout. The wolf lay down next to Prince Zuko, laying its head on its paws and staring at Tatsuo intently with blue eyes. It distantly triggered something in his memory, but he wasn't quite sure what it was.

"So, Private Tatsuo, why were your men ordered to look for our group?" the banished prince asked the same question as the waterbender had earlier.

"Prince Zuko, forgive me for not being able to show you proper respect," Tatsuo bowed his chin to his chest, the best he could do. He wondered if he would need to flop over in an indignant attempt at supplication.

"No need for formalities here, just answer the question."

"Commander Zhao visited with the Fire Sages as he left the home islands. It's rumored that the oracle on Crescent Island told him the Avatar has been reincarnated and is now a teenager," he said softly, averting his eyes from Zuko and looking at the Airbender feeding and petting the air bison.

After a long pause, Zuko spoke again. "So out of the hundreds of airbending teenagers, thousands of teenagers, if you throw in the Water Tribes for good measure, what makes Zhao think that skinny kid is the Avatar? He must be delusional if he thinks the first kid to crash-land in his fortress just happens to be the Avatar."

Tatsuo shrugged. "I don't exactly know. I was given orders and I was following them."

Zuko did not press the subject, and Tatsuo dozed off in the silence. The sound of the sea gently rocked him as he drifted in and out of consciousness, but he wished for lullabies instead.

* * *

Thanks for reading! If you're looking for good fiction with a Game of Thrones flair, check out any of Kangaroo2010's stories. Their current story Romance of the Four Nations is currently responsible for eating up some of my free time and a few of my heart attacks.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for good Eastern Asian mythology books to read? Doing some research for a new project :)


	7. Chapter 7

Boom. This chapter was a piece of cake compared to the last one, if you couldn't tell from the super-fast update (I don't think I like writing OCs that much). If you see any mistakes (grammatical or what-have-you), please let me know about them! The thought of letting them linger embarrasses me to no end.

Also, pull out your maps again - we're movin' on!

* * *

Zuko tapped Aang awake shortly before dawn on the third day. He had packed most of their supplies during the night, so Aang just had to wake himself and get Appa ready before Zuko walked off and Katara returned. They silently loaded the saddle and rigged up a system of water and air bending to help deposit Tatsuo on the saddle as well.

Aang stretched and yawned as the sun finally started burning off the fog that had enveloped their camp since landing. He settled on Appa's head, checked on the passengers one last time, and took flight.

He heard Tatsuo and Katara speaking in low voices behind him but could not make out the words. He was surprised; the two had said as little to one another as possible the day before.

Aang hadn't meditated since that first day, when his eyes glowed. He couldn't risk the soldier seeing him doing something so otherworldly, so instead he ran over his visions and what they might mean. He was fairly certain that he had witnessed a spirit possessing a man, but wasn't sure what it had to do with Katara and Zuko's predicament. The thought that the curse had something to do with the spirit world itched persistently at the back of his mind.

As they neared the river delta, Aang grew more alert of their surroundings. Smoke drifted up to them from the south; a large contingent of Fire Nation ships was near. He cursed to himself, hoping that their plan to throw the soldiers off their trail would still work.

They arrived at their drop-off point within two hours. The beach here was similar to their campsite, but with more nooks and crannies within the rocky arches. The forest was quiet, and the smell of coal fires drifted toward them from the sea. Aang and Katara looked at each other with wide and worried eyes. They worked quickly and quietly to settle the private on a rock. Aang jumped off into the forest to gather wood for a signal fire for him; when he returned with an armload, Tatsuo was thanking Katara for her help. She sighed as though they had had the same conversation already, and Aang had an idea of what they had discussed in the saddle.

"Private Tatsuo, like I said, you are welcome. Just close your eyes when we take off so you can have plausible deniability and we'll call it even," she sighed exasperated.

Aang stacked the wood and placed some damp leaves under it. Katara ran one last water-gloved hand over the Private's leg before hopping back in Appa's saddle. Aang twirled onto his perch, eager to escape from the quiet forest and the danger that might lurk there.

They took off and headed directly south. Flying this direction, the wind was quiet so Aang heard when Katara leaned over the lip of the saddle. "Why was the forest so quiet?" she asked him.

He shrugged and turned around. Over her shoulder he could see the signal smoke clearly. "I don't know. If they were there, why didn't they try to capture us? And why did Tatsuo have to get that signal going?"

Katara looked back where he pointed. "Maybe we were just paranoid, and nobody was there," she replied, her braid whipping in the wind. The whole experience left the two of them uneasy, and Aang was thankful for their plan to throw off the firebenders from their tracks.

They flew south for an hour or so before turning over the water. The smell of smoke grew stronger, and he heard Katara shift around the saddle behind him.

"I know we need to get out over the sea, but I have a bad feeling about this, Aang."

He nodded. The smell was giving him a headache, but he was grateful it wasn't the same as the wildfire smoke. It wasn't the scent of an ancient forest scorched to track down a single boy.

Around noon they saw the line of ships on the horizon. Aang whistled low and pulled on Appa's reins to soar higher in the sky. "Katara, our fastest route is directly over that fleet," he called back to her. "Any ideas?"

She said nothing, but stood and opened the wicker basket that had held Appa's berries. It now held a block of frozen water, courtesy of Katara. She simultaneously melted and pulled the water out and around them, whipping her arms around until the water surrounded Appa like a thousand threads. She shut her eyes and exhaled, with her arms in front of her. She jerked her hands out further, and the water turned into a fine mist. They were in the middle of a cloud. She lowered it a bit so they could see their direction, and Aang was pleased to see hundreds of other fluffy clouds like theirs floating around the sky.

His heart sank as the ships loomed larger below them. There wasn't just one line like he originally thought; dozens, if not hundreds, of ships created a field of coal spewing iron monsters floating toward the Pohuai River.

He looked back at Katara to ask her a question, but refrained when he saw the sweat on her brow, her eyes closed in concentration, and the cloud thickening around and under them. He looked at the other clouds around them and urged Appa to go slightly faster to match their pace.

The air grew thick with soot, and the clouds grew grey with it as well. They spent an hour tense with fear before the clouds around them thickened enough for Katara to draw her water back into the basket and refreeze it. There were no alarms from below, and somehow they passed without notice. Aang supposed word about his flying bison hadn't spread too far yet, and sighed a prayer of relief for small favors.

* * *

They made it to the Stone Fingers in the western peninsula of the Earth Kingdom close to midnight. Katara and Zuko transformed in the saddle, and Aang looked resolutely forward to give them their privacy. He didn't sleep much that night once they found a stone column large enough for Appa to rest on.

He sat with Zuko, and they built a small fire they hoped wouldn't be seen from the Sea. Now that they were without their hostage, Aang caught Zuko up to speed on all that had happened with his visions.

Zuko contemplated this new information for a bit, poking at the fire with a stick. "I wonder – can you ask Roku how the Fire Sages would know if the Avatar has been reincarnated?"

"Why's that – do you think what Tatsuo said about Zhao might be true?" Aang shivered at the thought of Zhao figuring out the truth before he had.

"I'm not sure. Sometimes the Sages will have some really important prophecies. So important that nobody is supposed to read them. There's something about trying to redirect fate – in trying to advert the prediction you make it come true."

Aang thought about this for a while before answering. "I can try to meditate again – I'm just not sure if I can do it on command. Those other two times I just kind of fell into the trance."

Zuko scratched the side of his neck and petted the wolf's ears in his lap. "I have faith in you, Aang."

* * *

Aang tried to meditate, but found himself distracted by the landscape and survival. The Stone Fingers were nothing like Aang had seen before. They flew into them from the south, and the entire region was simply a maze of stone columns, carved out from the network of rivers that crisscrossed the base of the mountains and the winds that whistled out of the North. Some were wide enough at the top to host a few green trees and their small camps, but the majority were barely big enough for a person to stand on.

They camped in each place for no more than two nights in a row, and Zuko would tell Aang some of the ghost stories about the region from the Fire Nation. There was a reason this area was uninhabited, and it wasn't just because of the impossible terrain. On the few warm fall days remaining, Appa drifted lazily in one of the rivers at the base of the canyons, but flew low through the peaks most days.

They dug for roots when they could, and rationed their supplies from the nuns more stringently. They had so much porridge Aang forgot what the texture of rice was supposed to be.

The walls of the canyon echoed horribly. One night was spent huddled together on a tiny platform, no room for a fire. Some creature was hunting, and the howls of the prey reverberated off the walls. Zuko had a small flame in his hand, and the two of them sat with Appa at their back and the wolf between them, wide-eyed and silent through the night. After that, they sparred until Aang fell asleep from exhaustion and left the ghost stories for another time.

It rained for one week straight. None of the water soaked into the rock; it all rolled down the cliff faces in torrential streams. They spent as much time under trees as possible, and managed to chase some bats out of a cave when the sky filled with lightning. The echoes from its depths chased them out as soon as the electrical storm passed.

After that rainstorm, it seemed like they were never completely warm or dry. The sky was dreary, and the sun masked by an autumn haze. Katara and Zuko continued to teach Aang their bending disciplines, but the grey skies dampened their moods as well. Aang felt too tired to meditate and try to confer with the past Avatar lives, and his dreams were full of fitful visions of engaging in perpetual battle with a large dark kite-like spirit.

One day they found the Northern edge of the Fingers. A great river wound down from the mountains and forests of the mainland and wound lazily across a high plateau before it dropped off the edge. There was a wide white ribbon of the falls, and then it vanished into the mist. They couldn't even hear the sound of the water hitting the bottom. It just seemed to disappear into nothing. Katara and Aang stood on the north side of the river and stared at the Stone Fingers beyond.

After a few weeks of their travels throughout the canyons, they arrived back at the sea. Here there was no beach, just the rough cliffs of the Stone Fingers and an abrupt drop into the Mo Ce. Katara dove into the cold waves, playing in the water. Aang rubbed Appa down at the top of the cliff while the hawk circled down the cliff, probably hunting in the crevices. Katara climbed back up the face using long water tentacles to swing herself around. They built a bonfire on the top of the cliff where they decided to camp and shared stories while cooking dinner – a stew with a handful of rice and some vegetables they had collected from the sparse vegetation on the mountains.

The hawk cried out a warning, and Katara squinted to see a ship sailing through the harbor from the East. Aang jumped up, prepared to saddle Appa and flee until she let out a shout of joy. Aang looked at the craft again, and noticed it had blue sails. Katara dove back off the side of the cliff and surfed out to greet it. It looked like a double canoe with two sails. He could see her hugging a figure on the boat, before she threw her arms out to bring a great wave to help them to the cliff faster.

The sun's lower edge was kissing the horizon when the boat touched the cliff. Aang floated down the cliff, landing on a few of the natural ledges as he went. As he hung from a handhold a dozen feet above them, a girl on the boat hastily stomped her feet and a rectangular rock dock rose from the sea. She disembarked and jumped on it and rolled around on the limestone, and Aang could hear her say, "Thank you, sweet, sweet Earth."

Katara was animatedly talking to the man still onboard while they tied back the sails. Aang looked closer at them, wondering how Katara knew the man and the girl. The sun was quickly setting, though, and Katara was mid-sentence when Zuko appeared on the deck next to her. She hugged him and pointed to the man. Aang felt left out, as though they were part of a club he hadn't realized existed.

The Earthbending girl stopped rolling when he landed on the dock. "Hello?" she asked, and Aang realized under her dark bangs that her eyes were milky white.

"Hi, I'm Katara's friend Aang," he said, realizing that she couldn't see him.

"Well stop being so light-footed," she said. "It's not nice to sneak up on people like that."

"Sorry," Aang started to apologize but found she wouldn't let him finish.

"I'm Toph. Where's this camp Sweetness told us about?" she said as she stood and readjusted her thick brown traveling cape. He was shocked that her feet were bare in the cold weather, and wondered what sort of hardships the pair had fallen on.

Aang looked at the ship, where Katara had turned into her wolf form and Zuko grasped the man's forearm in his hand. It seemed like the world was spinning, and he turned back to the Earthbender, and for the first time realized that she was an _Earthbender_. He wondered if the gods had a sense of humor, bringing their group together like this.

"It's up at the top of the cliff," he said in awe.

"Sweetness, Snoozles, let's go!" she shouted and whistled. I'm only going to do this once tonight, ok?"

Zuko cocked and eyebrow at "Snoozles" and motioned over toward Aang. Snoozles shrugged, and jumped off the ship. As Zuko and the wolf disembarked as well, Toph's brow furrowed.

"What is this – Sokka, did the sun set?" Toph barked.

Zuko looked at the short girl with a bemused look on his face before he looked at Aang. Aang just shook his head and shrugged.

"Well whatever," Toph said. "Prince Zuko, Toph Bei Fong. Pleased to meet you. Now get your butts over here. I'm hungry."

The four – five including the wolf – of them huddled together at the base of the cliff. At Toph's insistence they stopped fidgeting, and she stomped her foot, rocketing a hefty chunk of limestone and them up the cliff's face.

The fire was still roaring, and their porridge was easily stretched with the addition of a little more water. In the light of the fire, Aang got a better look at the man Katara had been so excited to see. His eyes were the same blue as Katara's, and he wore a mix of colors of a wanderer under his blue parka – patched brown pants, a green vest with red peeking out from underneath.

"Are you Katara's brother?" Aang asked.

Sokka nodded and grasped Aang's right forearm. He responded in the way he had seen Zuko earlier, and grasped Sokka's in return. "I'm Aang. Zuko and Katara kind of saved my butt."

"You must be the airbender the nuns at the Abbey told me about. I was confused why my sister would be traveling with one, but if you and your bison got them safely away from that forest fire, I figured you wouldn't be all bad."

Aang perked up at the mention of the Abbey. "You were there? Did they have any problems?"

Sokka scratched at his chin. "Well, they did mention it was strange how the fire seemed to stop spreading soon after you and Katara left, but were very insistent that you had traveled west. I figured with an air bison you might just be able to handle the Fingers."

"Sokka, where have you been?" Zuko joined the conversation while he scooped the stew into their mismatched bowls and mugs. "And where did you meet this… Toph?"

"Hey, I don't like that tone," she objected from where she lounged against a rock she had punched up from the column, picking at her nails.

"Right, so I found Toph in Gao Ling. I had hoped to find someone in Omashu, but the whole Fire Nation presence there made me reconsider that whole plan. She was the Earth Rumble champion in the South, and I needed an earthbender to help me in my exploration. She was really a lot easier to travel with in the Si Wong desert than on my skiff."

"In our original business proposal, there was no mention of sailing on wooden ships," she said defensively. "Then I got caught up in the whole story of your curse thing and wanted to find out if it was true. That whole change-over thing must suck."

The group was quiet at this, but something Sokka said scratched that itch in Aang's mind and he rubbed the arrow on his forehead in thought. "What were you looking for in the Si Wong Desert?" he asked, trying to remember why this seemed familiar. The answer hit him as soon as Sokka spoke.

"Well, I wanted to tell Katara first, but I found Wan Shi Tong's library," Sokka began, a wide grin cracking his face. "And we think figured out how to get Katara and Zuko back to human."

* * *

Gasp! I've had that last bit written since I started this story :)

If you're interested in a visual of my take on the Stone Fingers (aka where Aang and Ozai battled it out in the series finale) look up pictures of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. I'm sure it's one of the places that originally inspired the area for the show, but I love the mist and fog in the photos.

The waterfall I described at the northern edge of the peninsula is based on Gullfoss, Iceland. My World-building Pinterest board has been full of this stuff since I started outlining this story.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I'm back! Real life got a little hectic, and my break lasted longer than I had planned. Since it has been a while, I wouldn't blame you if you skim back over Chapter 7 to refresh your memories.

* * *

Toph's snort broke the silence. "Please, all I did was talk to that owl. You did all the reading."

"Come on Toph, you know I've been practicing that build-up for weeks," Sokka groaned.

The moment may have been ruined for Toph and Sokka, but Zuko felt his jaw hang loose. It was like his ears were clogged – he must have misheard. One look at Aang's eyes wide with excitement and he knew he hadn't.

"Come again?" The hopeful note sounded foreign to him, like it wasn't Zuko's voice coming from his mouth.

Sokka shot another futile dirty look toward Toph before turning back to Zuko.

"Apparently there's a spirit who specialized in things like this, but normally he steals faces, instead of whatever mumbo jumbo happened with you guys," Sokka said. "He's not necessarily evil, just… disruptive. From what I could piece together in the library, if you and Katara make your case to him in the Spirit World, you might have a chance at getting it reversed."

"So, one of us visits this spirit and he'll turn us back?" Zuko asked, enunciating each syllable slowly. He knew Sokka, and he knew when he was holding back. He knew there was a catch.

Sokka broke his eye contact, and Zuko felt something inside his chest deflate. "I think the two of you might have to be there together, like to solve a riddle," he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

Sokka's answer only led to more questions, and Zuko just felt annoyed and a little angry. His temper flared, but he didn't want to toss a fireball at his hopefully-future-brother-in-law and pinched the bridge of his nose instead.

"So Katara and I are supposed to get to the Spirit World during the few seconds we're both human a day and find some spirit and answer a riddle?"

Sokka nodded along, his smile tight and thin, but his eyes were bright with excitement. "I know it sounds impossible, and you probably just want to burn something right now, but I found a loophole, and I think this spirit might think it's clever and turn you guys back. It's kind of like a riddle – when is the sun up, but the moon is more powerful?"

Zuko's eyes widened, "Are you talking about the day of black sun?"

"Exactly – and guess when the next eclipse is."

Zuko sucked a breath in through his teeth, forcing a whistling noise to quell that stupid flutter in his chest. "I'm guessing that it's pretty soon."

"It's the Winter Solstice, Mr. Hotman. Guess what else is significant about that day," Sokka said as he laced his fingers behind his head and lounged back against Appa.

Zuko felt less like setting things on fire, but his patience was still thin. "Well firebending doesn't work," he ventured, but Sokka shook his head. He leveled a glare at Sokka.

Aang perked up next to Zuko. "The barrier between the Spirit World and the Physical World is weakest then," he blurted. The words tumbled over each other, as if his mind was on a different track than his mouth.

Sokka nodded sagely at Aang before turning back to Zuko. "So you go into the Spirit World in your human forms together during the eclipse, show the spirit you figured out a loophole in his curse and see if he'll just do away with it permanently."

The fire crackled in between them and cast a protective aura from the haunting echoes of the canyon nightlife. Sokka dug a snack out of his pack, and Toph picked up some rocks and levitated them lazily with one hand.

"Yeah," Zuko said. "Sounds simple enough." A persistent thrum beat between his eyes, and he wished he could sleep it off.

"Hey, Zuko," the soft tone in Sokka's voice made Zuko look up. "I wish I had been able to find an easier way. I really want this to work."

Aang startled Zuko when he spoke again. "Sokka, what did you find out about this spirit?"

Sokka finished chewing his jerky and swallowed. "Like I said, he's apparently really ancient. I took some notes, and copied a few texts about him, but I'm not even sure if all of the information was accurate. You're more than welcome to look at my stuff."

He was leaving something out, Zuko realized. "This is the Spirit Library, and you couldn't find information on a really ancient spirit?"

Sokka flinched.

"Tell him what you found, Snoozles," Toph sighed and dropped her small stones.

"Apparently the more helpful scrolls about the face-stealer are heaps of ash," Sokka said. "Along with most of the Fire Nation section. Wan Shi Tong originally didn't want to let us poke around."

Zuko leaned back, and the wolf stuck her head in his lap. "So somebody from the Fire Nation probably _was_ behind our curse," he said as he stroked her ears. "That's better than hearing that we unwittingly pissed off some spirit."

Toph huffed. "If our experience with the librarian is any indication, I think a spirit would let you know if you pissed it off. He tried to eat us as soon as we got into the library without asking any questions. The worst part was the flying. I'm glad he was so big you could hear him coming."

Zuko finally put her remarks together. "Wait, Wan Shi Tong was a _bird_?" He felt like there was irony there, but there were too many thoughts buzzing in his head for him to sort it out. "How did you convince him not to eat you?"

Toph waved her hand. "Yeah, he's a huge owl, but he's also a sucker for knowledge. Apparently it's been a while since he's met a blind person. I told him how I use earthbending to get around and he let Sokka go crazy in the remains of the library. We hung out while Snoozles poked around in the stacks."

Sokka rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, yeah, you saved me. My weak-ass knot wasn't impressive enough to get us in, but your amazing earthbending senses are more than enough."

Toph started ribbing him about another time she saved him in some altercation with sand benders, and Zuko wanted to listen, but Aang reached over and tugged at his sleeve.

"Zuko, I think I can help with this," Aang said, not paying attention to the other two. "If I meditate enough, I can get to the spirit world and try to find out more about this spirit. Or you know, at least get some help."

Zuko felt his face soften, and he hoped his bad eye wasn't leaking tears. "That would be great, Aang," was the most he trusted himself to say.

Sokka and Toph had stopped bickering and were staring at them. Well, Sokka was staring suspiciously and Toph had her head cocked to the side, as though listening for something.

"Guys, what's going on?" Sokka asked slowly.

Zuko blanched and looked to Aang. This wasn't his secret to reveal, but they'd be stupid to keep this from these two – especially since it seemed like they were going to stick with them for a while.

Aang had a panicked look on his face, and he coughed before speaking. "Well, we think that I'm the Avatar."

Toph snorted. "Why do you _think_ that?"

Aang's face flushed. "No, I mean I am the Avatar. I just didn't know until a few weeks ago."

Sokka had a skeptical look on his face. "So you think the Avatar isn't just some fairy tale, and that you're our best shot at saving the world from Fire Lord Crazy?"

Zuko nodded along with Aang while he told his story – how he had escaped from Zhao and ran into Zuko, traveling to get Appa and their bending matches. Aang also told them about his vision of Roku, and the strange vision of spirits.

"I've been thinking about it these last few weeks, and somehow I know I'm supposed to restore balance, and I think somehow the spirits are involved with the curse," Aang finished up.

Sokka and Toph were speechless now, and Zuko cleared his throat. "And that's why he can probably help us," he said lamely to fill in the silence.

They nodded dumbly. "Well no shit," Toph finally said. "No fucking shit."

"I think what my associate is trying to say, Avatar Aang, is that we're looking forward to working with you, but I think I might need to sleep on this one to believe it," Sokka said before yawning. "And Katara's probably going to wake me up at some ungodly early hour, so I'm going to go ahead and turn in for the night."

As the others lay out sleeping pads, erected stone tents, and curled up next to flying fur balls, Zuko and the wolf walked out to the edge of their stone column. He combed his fingers through her thick coat and longed to ask his uncle for advice on traversing the spirit world.

* * *

The next morning, Toph took Aang sliding down the mountains while the water tribe siblings caught up with each other. Katara had been as wary as Zuko about the plan, but agreed it was worth a try.

As Toph stomped her foot on the slab they had ridden up the mountain the night before, Aang laughed with glee at the drop of his stomach. The stone ground loudly, echoes bouncing through the canyons, and he blew away the cloud of dust that followed them down the slope.

When they reached the stone dock, Aang couldn't keep the grin from his face.

"That was _fun_," he told Toph. She had a small smirk on her face as she punched the slab back into the side of the mountain.

"Thanks," she replied. "Not too many people can keep up with my idea of fun."

They walked down the dock and sat at the edge. The sun was still low in the sky, and the sea was still smooth in the morning. A teasing breeze tugged at Aang's hair, whispering promises of cooler days yet. Toph broke off a chunk of the limestone and played with it, bending it into discs and spheres and cubes. Aang watched her hands, hypnotized by the smooth transitions she used. He wondered if this was a good time to mention needing an earthbending master.

"So Twinkletoes, you really had no idea that you were the Avatar?" Toph startled him, and he was happy she couldn't see him staring at her bending.

"Yeah, I've only know for a few weeks," he replied. He wondered if he needed to run back through the highlights of his story, if she had been exhausted the night before, if he hadn't explained well. He was worried, and worry made his hands clammy.

"Well yeah, I heard your story last night, but you really had no idea before then? Nothing weird happened to you in your Air Temples?"

Aang traced a line in the stone and relaxed. "Well, I grew up with the stories, but there was a part of me that started to think they were just that – _stories_."

Toph, surprisingly, gently folded her rocks back into the dock and placed her hands next to her legs as she kicked them in the air. Her toenails were in surprisingly good shape for how filthy her feet were, and Aang wondered how a barefoot blind girl could travel across a continent without stubbing a toe. "You don't sound too excited about it," she said.

Aang shrugged, and then grew flustered when he realized the gesture was lost on her. "Some of the other novices and I would talk about what we would do if we found out we were the long-lost avatar, but I never factored any of the real world things into it. Most people think I'm the only person who can stop this huge war that has been raging for generations, and all I want to focus on is breaking a curse on my friends." He glanced over, but was unable to see her face underneath her bangs. "I'm kind of freaking out about it, but I feel like I have to put on this face around Katara and Zuko. Their problems are just a little more… pressing."

Toph huffed, her bangs fluttering up with her breathe. "I could see how you think that," she said, then abruptly dropped her shoulders. "Look, I'm not good with all of this talking-about-feelings and shit, and normally I would tell you I don't care. But if you need somebody to, I dunno, talk to… I'll give you five minutes a day to gush."

Aang was torn between wanting to throw his arms around her and wrinkle his brow in confusion. "Thanks Toph," was what he settled on, and kept his arms at his side.

She punched him in the shoulder with surprising accuracy. "Now that we've got that out of the way, when are you going to ask me to be your Earthbending Master?"

Aang stopped rubbing the sore spot on his shoulder and nearly hugged her then. "How did you – I mean – yes?" he spluttered.

Toph smirked. "It didn't take a genius to figure out. Plus, this will give me so much cred if I go back to the Earth Rumble."

"Earth Rumble?" Aang tossed a pebble into the glassy water, and watched the ripples radiate outward. "How did you get pulled into Sokka's crazy library scheme anyway?"

Toph laughed, and it sounded like a sharp bark. "I actually just won my third belt that night. I guess Sokka had been in the crowd, and when I showed up at my usual celebration spot he happened to be there. He bought me drinks, I tried to scam him, and I think at one point there was an incident with a poetry club? The whole night was pretty fuzzy because we did some cactus juice shots. We woke up on the floor of the Boulder's kitchen the next morning and I decided anyone that entertaining was worth hanging out with."

Aang didn't understand half of this girl's references, but tried not to let on and tossed a few more stones in the river. "So you thought it was a good call to travel hundreds of miles with a guy because he was a fun drunk?"

Toph shrugged. "My parents kept me pretty isolated, and hanging out with the guys at the Rumble was the only thing keeping me sane. Sokka presented a more permanent option to get away from home for a while."

Aang shook his head in disbelief, but thought he understood. "Do you miss it?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes, but then I get a good layer of grime between my toes and find out I'm going to teach the world's last salvation how to earthbend, and it isn't so bad."

Aang punched her this time, and she called his try weak at best, and they chatted until raindrops began to fall. As the afternoon rainstorm rolled in, Toph elevated them back to the top of the mountain. Katara sat near the dying fire, leaning back and basking in the moisture. Sokka, on the other hand, hunched over with a long face. When he saw Toph and Aang he opened his mouth as if to complain. Toph stomped a few times on the ground, and had created shelter large enough for the entire group.

Even though the rain bit at his skin, Aang sat near Katara. The hawk had been sitting on her shoulder, but rubbed her cheek before flying toward the makeshift cave. Appa shook his fur and ambled over as well. Aang distantly heard Sokka complain about the smell of wet animal, and Toph reply that his stench was worse.

Katara looked up at Aang. "If this rain were warmer, it would be like being back in the Fire Nation this time of year," she said. The worry lines on her forehead seemed smoother, and her shoulders more relaxed than normal. When he made these comparisons, Aang realized just how well Katara hid her stress from him.

She stood then, holding out a hand to help him to his feet, and they joined the rest of their group in the shelter. Toph brought out some dice, and they gambled with twigs and stones, drowning out the sound of thunder with their laughter.


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you, readers and reviewers! You are awesome!

* * *

The next few days were so mired in planning and dissent that Aang longed for the days when it was just the three of them floating through the canyons on Appa. Even though they had been listless and bored, they could pretend like nothing else in the world existed. Now, though, they had a deadline and two additional people who were very aware of the situation beyond the canyon walls. Aang might not have been completely sure how to Avatar, but he knew it would be irresponsible if they didn't act soon.

The Solstice was a little more than a month away, and they tallied up the disheartening short list of spiritual places they knew of, where it would be easier for Zuko and Katara to enter the Spirit World.

These were the Spirit Oases at the poles, and gardens in the Air Temples. Sokka urged them to travel to the North Pole. "They won't be happy to see us, especially since they're still pretty closed off, but they won't turn away us – we're basically family."

"There is no way they're going to let the banished Prince of the Fire Nation hang out there for a few weeks, even if he's a hawk half the time," Katara argued. "On top of that, what if word gets out that we're there? Do you think Fire Nation fleets will leave them alone if they hear a rumor that they're harboring a banished prince and an airbender who Zhao apparently thinks is the Avatar?"

Aang pointed out there were few places they could safely hide out at all. It was amazing how long they had stayed in the Stone Fingers, and that Sokka and Toph were even able to find them. "We're better off staying isolated from anyone. If Zhao hears any rumors, he's bound to come looking for us."

That also left out all of the Spiritual Places he knew of around the Air Temples. He was reluctant to admit it to the others, but he wasn't sure how his people would react to one of their own being the long-lost Avatar.

"If we were closer to the South, I would at least know which monks to turn to help me keep my independence. I don't know the Northern monks as well, and I don't want them to try to take me away and train me up to use as a weapon against the Fire Nation," Aang admitted. "And I don't want to bring a fight with Zhao to their doorstep either."

Toph pitched in that it didn't matter where they went as soon as they kept moving. Her vote was for figuring out where to end up as the Solstice grew closer. "There's no point in settling down just for the Fire Nation to show up soon after us and start lobbing fire balls at us."

Zuko was left out of some of the more lively daytime discussions, but agreed with Toph – that they should keep moving and prepare for accessing the spirit world, figuring out where to go when the Solstice was closer, and they had a clearer idea of what they needed to do to avoid capture.

The indecision paralyzed the group to the point that Zuko said less and punched more fireballs from his fists, and Sokka's attempts to lighten the mood proved progressively lamer as the days went on. Katara and Toph stopped speaking to each other for a day and each was dismayed to find the other at the base of the mountain to get some space after some impressive bending-assisted exits. A loud and violent spar that echoed for miles erupted between the river and the canyon walls. Sokka, Aang, the Hawk, Appa, and their mountain shivered and sat out, afraid of destruction, but even more afraid to intervene. The spar ended when the sun set during the last of their breaks, but the next morning all was forgiven between the two young women.

Feeling mounting pressure as he came to terms with what it meant to be the Avatar, he meditated more and more often. Sometimes he caught glimpses into the Spirit World or a shadow of something else – green skirts in the corner of his eye, a flash of a polar bear pelt, or the whip of a dragon tail. He had trouble sleeping, and had little appetite. The more the others bickered, the more he tried to be alone.

After another dead-end discussion over where to go, Aang flitted down the mountain and perched on a rock at the river's edge. He felt his mind go quiet, but he looked up when he saw movement on the opposite bank. There was a tall woman – perhaps the tallest person he had ever seen – standing opposite him. She wore a green dress with armor, and several weapons hanging from a belt, the most impressive being a set of gold fans. White and red makeup or war paint covered her face, and completed a rather intimidating picture.

Like when he first met Roku, he didn't really remember opening his eyes.

"Good evening, young airbender," her contralto voice reverberated richly in the space between them. "I wondered when I would hear from you."

"I didn't realize I was looking for you," Aang felt slightly annoyed.

She set her jaw and the corners of her mouth twitched up slightly in semblance of a smile.

"I'm sorry, I don't know who you are," he tried again.

"I thought that fool Roku would have told you more," she said, her face betraying no emotion.

Aang thought back to the statue rotunda. The sculptor had missed her height by a few inches, but he knew who she was. "Kyoshi," he said as he bowed. "Can you help us find a place where my friends can enter the Spirit World?"

"You should concern yourself more with the unbalanced state of affairs in your world," she rebuffed him.

"I will, but they're my friends and they've had this curse for over a year," Aang argued.

"A trivial matter," the woman waved him off. "The world has been unbalanced far longer."

Aang was taken aback by her callousness, and wondered how he would change if he lived long enough. Thinking quickly, he tried a new approach. "I need them. They are both master benders. One is perhaps the only firebender who will teach me in the midst of this war. They are instrumental in helping me restore balance." He felt dirty for comparing his friends to necessary resources in a war.

Kyoshi cocked an eyebrow, as if she knew he was reasoning around his emotions. "Very well, young airbender. There is a temple at the ruins of Taku. An herbalist lives on the mountain there, and she might have a concoction that can help as well."

Aang was surprised to receive her help. "Thank you," he said, and bowed again.

"Sort this out, and master the elements. We have been dormant far too long," she said with a military air. Aang blinked, and she was gone, without so much as goodbye.

* * *

Aang climbed the mountain by hand, and arrived at the top long after sunset. Toph and Sokka were already snoring in their sleeping areas, and Zuko idly spun the fire into a vortex while the wolf lay beside him.

He told Zuko about his recent acquaintance with his surprisingly helpful past life, and went on to describe some of the other things he had learned from meditating for the past few weeks.

Zuko was impressed. "Aang, that's something to go off. If it's in ruins, we don't have to worry about other people." Zuko sprung up and walked over to his bag. He dug through it and pulled out their well-worn map. He unfolded it carefully, and placed it on a clear bit of ground close enough to the fire for light.

They scoured the parchment for the city, and Aang felt his heart sink as he wondered if it was even on this map.

Zuko seemed just as perplexed. "I know I've heard of it. It was maybe right – oh," he said flatly. He pointed to a point on the map east of where they had met. "It's awfully close to Pohuai," he said softly.

Aang could cover the distance on the paper with his thumbnail. It was probably two days' travel by foot from Pohuai, but Kyoshi had sounded so sure about the location.

"Maybe this isn't such a bad idea," Aang said slowly. "You know, like, the closer we are to danger, the further we are from harm?"

Zuko paused for a moment before smirking. "You might be on to something, Aang. It's been a month since we've seen any Fire Nation forces. Zhao will have already scoured this area and won't expect us to set up camp so close."

They folded the map back up and Zuko placed it back in the satchel. Aang stretched and moved to curl up on Appa's tail, but Zuko stopped him. "You know Aang, I'm going to be really disappointed in you if we're still camping on this stupid mountain the next time we see each other."

* * *

Sokka was reluctant to leave his ship behind, but agreed it would be easier if they all flew on Appa. Toph helped carve out a cave to shelter it so some day he could come back for it. He lovingly folded the canvas sails and packed anything of value to take with him. He took so long that even Katara grew impatient and threatened to leave him to rot with his precious ship.

They flew northeast, planning to make a loop around the northern edge of the Earth Kingdom to avoid the patrols in the Mo Ce Sea, and were careful to avoid signs of other people. The first night, they camped near the huge waterfall on the eastern edge of the mountains. Zuko sat up with the wolf, his back to the fire and the falls, and felt oddly exposed on the high plain with the abrupt drop of water behind him. He wondered if people lived out in the darkness, and what sort of lifestyle protected them from a century of confrontation with his people.

The plain was barren enough that they landed occasionally and hiked if the clouds were sparse. Aang felt his old sores from the hike to the Abbey come back after week of disuse. Toph hated flying, but instead of complaining when they had to, she gloated to the others about how much she loved walking on solid ground.

They marched and flew on, washing smelly socks in ice-cold streams and eating little more than berries, nuts, and Sokka's seal jerky. Aang hated the smell of the jerky, and often threatened to use it as a fire starter if they got separated from Zuko. They slept in a strange pile next to Appa for warmth, and Toph would erect a short wall around the group to shield them from the biting wind.

"Zuko, I don't mind that you're our human at night," she declared one night when they were piled together in their makeshift shelter with the cold wind howling around them. "Katara's helpful with the cloud ball during the day. I think we really lucked out here," she continued, giggling manically. "Imagine how great it'll be to travel in a giant snowball with a space heater after Solstice!"

"Thanks," he dryly responded, wishing he could leave the smelly pile and depend on his own warmth. Even the Wolf shivered, and he snuggled with her under a blanket, imagining how much more enjoyable it would be if she were in her human form and her brother weren't snoring in his ear and they were indoors and wearing fewer clothes...

Zuko hated how tired everyone was after a day of traveling, and wished he could do more than the scouting he apparently did in hawk-form. He longed for sleep. Instead, he kept his eyes and ears open for threats to the group at night, holding a wolf to his chest to keep it warm and feeling a little helpless.

When the skies were completely overcast, they all wrapped themselves in furs and simply flew above the clouds, relaxing as much as they could in the biting wind. Aang cracked nuts constantly when he was steering, and watched the handfuls of shells tumble through the clouds. He imagined the shells taking up residence in the clouds, talking to cloud people and trying to adapt to a new land.

The winds both excited and worried Aang. They seemed more insistent, and clawed at his sash and sleeves when he flew on Appa. He felt like they were trying to tell him something, or warn him in some way, but he was unable to decipher it. His glider was still long gone with Zhao, and he wanted to do nothing but harness the teasing winds and fly circles around his friends.

When the clouds weren't thick enough and they risked running into people, Katara stood and encased Appa in a cloud like she had during their escape to the Stone Fingers. The closer to Pohuai they flew, the more water vapor she gathered, and the more exhausted she was at dusk.

As Solstice drew closer and the biting Arctic winds clawed further south, Katara fought harder against the wind to keep the pocket of moisture around them from exploding in a ball of snow. She wished Zuko were human to help them with warmth, to hold her and console her. She started wondering what they would become if this harebrained scheme did not work. When her thoughts started down that path, she tried to block it. Mentally she piled trees and rocks and dug deep ravines so she could focus on the journey in front of her.

She thought instead of Zuko holding her to his chest, how warm her back would be if he were with her then. She wished that she could remember her times as a wolf, when she got to be with him for hours on end. She hoped she cuddled with him, and licked his face. She couldn't help but think she got the raw end of the deal. A hawk, after all, is not very cuddly at all.

* * *

They landed in the outskirts of the vast deserted city on a mountain two weeks before Solstice. The signs marked it as Taku, and it fit the descriptions. They stood in the shadow of two badgermole statues while they debated whether to fly on up the mountain or disembark and hike. Toph was the most vocal for giving Appa a break, and Sokka agreed it would be easier for their earthbending safety-inspector to work where she could see.

Aang rubbed Appa's snout and loosened his saddle, and he groaned in appreciation. Katara petted the hawk's feathers down smooth before he launched into the air to circle above them.

Even pockmarked with blast craters and obvious signs of looting, the city of Taku was an impressive sight. They were at least half a mile from the base of the mountain, and then the buildings were built directly into the hillside, roads and stairways winding up to a tower at the peak of the mountain. Katara didn't think she had seen a city that could house so many people since leaving the capitol. That was set into a crater, though, and did not seem nearly as infinite as this maze of marble and limestone.

Aang and Toph led their party, their goal to find a place radiating with spiritual energy and stable enough that they wouldn't be crushed in their sleep. They picked their way carefully around the rubble in the road, trying not to make any sharp noises. Toph looked especially worried about the prospect of a rockslide.

Katara thought that people may have tried to clean up and survive in the outskirts of the city, but had given up shortly after the invasion. The worst of the destruction was at the base of the mountain, as though forces had come back to harass the stragglers who insisted on eking out an existence there. As they climbed, there were fewer large boulders in the road, but more stairways to clamor up.

Their footsteps echoed eerily in the roads and across the mountains. It didn't seem like anything lived here but the trees that had slowly uprooted the pavement stones in the streets and the shrubs that overflowed the containers they had been planted in. Toph occasionally asked Sokka to hack away an overly ambitious plant before they continued.

Three different times, Toph called for them to stop, and then would carefully rework a pile of rubble to be more sturdy. Katara watched in awe as she cleared rocks and boulders from the walkways, and reverently touched the carvings in the marble stairwells and walls.

The buildings and streets gradually became more ornate the higher up the mountain they climbed, though they showed more damage from looting than actual battle. In the flat lands at the base of the mountain, the most decoration had been on the street posts, and the buildings had been simple and sturdy. Here, each doorway seemed to lead to a different story. Alcoves sheltered battered statues of badgermoles and household spirits. Katara looked for the little details the artisans provided – the peek of a mosaic in a city center under debris, a dancing platypus bear in a dried fountain, the curl of a stone made to look like vines clinging to an archway. The arched doorways leading to dark cavernous homes and businesses grew larger and had more floral details.

Nobody grumbled from hunger or exhaustion, they were so absorbed in the possibilities of this civilization. The sun was low in the sky, and they were nearly to the top when Aang and Toph stopped.

"What are you thinking, Twinkletoes?" Toph asked.

"There's a pull here," he replied. "How safe is this one, Toph?"

She stomped her foot on the ground, and waited. She kneeled and touched fingertips to the stone as if she were listening closely.

"It's safe," she said. "And huge. There's a network of tunnels that goes further into and down the mountain."

"When was the last time anyone used it?" Sokka asked.

Toph shrugged. "I can't tell. Nobody's here now though."

Katara looked west over the vast maze of stone they had woven through that day. She wanted some time alone with Zuko looking over this. It felt like they hadn't even had their precious transformation time since before Sokka and Toph had joined up, and she figured this was a safe enough place.

"If Zuko isn't back up here in an hour, send down a search party," she told Sokka as she hugged him goodnight.

She found the dancing platypus bear fountain, and watched the sun kiss the horizon. The hawk landed next to her, and she waited. It seemed silly to cry tonight, when they were finally here, so instead she just held his hand and wished the moment would never end.

* * *

I'm so excited – I'm actually paying to sit in a theater to watch the Avengers this weekend. Also, if you have access to Netflix, I cannot recommend Daredevil highly enough – fantastic writing and characters, great action scenes, and Matt Murdock looks fiiine fighting mobsters. But if the weather's nice in your neighborhood, get out and enjoy the outdoors! Netflix can wait for a stormy or absurdly hot day. Or you can do what I do, and watch on your phone while you lay in your hammock. I'm such a bum.


	10. Chapter 10

I would post these notes at the end of the chapter, but they're going here because reasons.

If you like superhero stories/themes, last week in a fit of insomnia I posted a chapter – let's call it a teaser – for a future Zuko/Katara story called "Vigilante Justice."

I know I said this a few months/chapters ago, but I absolutely hate the title of this story. And even though I've told a few people that I probably wouldn't change it, it turns out that was a big fat lie. So when I post the next update, the title of this story will be "Together at the Horizon." Read into that what you will.

Also, did I watch Princess Mononoke for the first time in a few years last weekend? You tell me.

All right! Less talk, more reading!

* * *

Katara pulled out the map Toph and Zuko had found the night before while exploring the catacombs beneath Taku's temple. She impatiently elbowed Sokka when he breathed in her ear too heavily. "You know, you're not the only one in this group who can navigate," she snapped.

When she had transformed that morning, Zuko presented the map with flourish and a rather promising kiss. She had allowed herself to drool for a few moments before waking up her brother for a good, old-fashioned Southern Water Tribe adventure, just the two of them. Even Zuko had hung back at camp with Toph and Aang in his hawk form.

Katara had conveniently forgotten how domineering Sokka could be when it came to navigating, though.

"Yeah, yeah, old habits," Sokka said in lieu of an apology. "We're sure that it's this peak though? We don't exactly have an air bison to hop on if she's on a different one."

Katara shoved the map in his hands. "Check if you like, but this is the one," she said, sticking her chin out and walking ahead. She rounded a bend in the path and saw a sign that made her smirk. Sokka was wrestling to fold the map back down when she hit his arm and pointed.

"Yeah yeah," Sokka grumbled and pocketed the map. "You don't have to say it."

The path was well maintained, and it took them little time to reach the bottom of an endless set of stairs cut into the face of the mountain. They looked at each other, the sun, where it was already halfway down to the horizon, and back up the stairs.

"Well, now seems as good a time as any to set up camp," Sokka said as he unstrapped his bag and dropped it to the ground.

Sokka had shocked Katara during the journey from the Stone Fingers. The Sokka she grew up with and knew before his transcontinental sojourn would have waited for one of the women in the group (her) to start cooking dinner. This new Sokka, though, brought out a small block to chop food on and even carried salt and spices. This excursion was no different. When she returned from gathering water from a stream, he already had a fire started and some roots chopped and rice measured out, ready to toss in the pot.

"So I see that you've got a culinary side now," she said as she set the pot near the fire.

He did blush a little, but his jaw had a proud set to it. "Yeah, I had to figure out a few things on my own, and I knew when Toph joined up that there was no way she was going to coddle me. But she's very handy in finding root vegetables and making hunting pits."

Katara smiled, wondering what other little new traits he had picked up. Did he still snore like an elephant seal? Did he still try to hit on any woman between the ages of 18 and 34? She guessed not, since his relationship with Toph seemed platonic. She was proud of her big brother, and a little sad that he had grown up so much without her around.

"Katara, what are you going to do after?" Sokka broke her train of thought.

"You mean after jumping Zuko and trying to make you as uncomfortable as possible?" She asked mischievously. He made retching sounds, and she laughed. "Stick with Aang, I guess. I was there when he realized that he could waterbend and figured out what he was. He's still a kid, you know? Nobody should have to face that by himself."

"Well don't you ever think about coming home and helping us rebuild?"

Katara paused, and opened her mouth a few times before the right words came out. "I don't even know where home is any more." She sounded small and she hated that. "But I'm not sure it's at the South Pole, even if everyone returned. I've been gone for half of my life now."

Sokka looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. "You know we would accept you back. We've all missed you."

Katara wasn't so sure how far that acceptance would go. "They'd have a hard time accepting me back, and there's zero chance they'd like having a banished prince from the Fire Nation around."

"Things have changed, you don't know-"

"Sokka, I don't belong there anymore. You and Dad _left me_. I know he didn't really have a choice, but he left me in a pit of vipers," she interrupted sharply. "I came to terms with the idea of never seeing the South again a long time ago."

Sokka stared into the fire with a dark expression. Katara tried not to think about the first two years. The new Fire Lord paraded her around at dinners for a few months, bidding her to bend water for them, before forgetting her about her until she was under Iroh's protection. She could barely form a bubble, and the courtiers laughed at her and called her barbaric. The Princess _seemed_ nice enough at first, but that sweetness just turned out to be sugar on the edge of a razor blade.

The only companion she found was a reluctant boy who also missed his mother. True, he didn't really go out of his way to be nice to her before Iroh returned, but he hadn't been cruel either, which had been enough to gain a homesick nine-year-old's trust. He had begrudgingly let her trail him around the gardens and halls, and while he turned red when Azula and her cronies teased him about it, he never lashed out at her or told her to stop.

"I was getting ready to visit you," his voice was small in the waning light. "When we heard about Zuko's banishment."

Katara felt a pulse behind her eye from the conversation. "How did you know-"

"Iroh sent us letters once he adopted you. He knew that you couldn't risk writing us without it looking like you in collusion with us, but he let us know little things, like when you mastered waterbending and the first time you beat him at Pai Sho. When you beat Zuko in a sparring match," he smiled wistfully. "He was trying to broker a deal where we could come visit when everything happened," he said. "Dad thought he was going to try to help us rebuild the South as part of a marriage contract for you and Zuko."

She felt like her world was tipping sideways. So many things from her time with Iroh made sense. Why he insisted she wear red in public and watch her words. She might have been a pawn, but she still represented a threat. The barbed comments and snickers behind her back had stopped once a spar with Azula ended when she held an ice pick to the princess's neck.

"But Katara, it's been a year since you really spent time with Zuko. He's a great guy and all, but how are you sure that it isn't just – I don't know – puppy love?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed, her throat thick. "I worry about that too." She couldn't voice all of the possibilities that looped through her mind during those exhausted quiet times she wished for sleep instead: what if the only reason they had stuck together was because of their curse? What if they have changed into two completely different people from where they were when the curse began? What if they were still too young, and would find other people they would rather spend their lives with? They paralyzed her if she let their chorus overtake her thoughts.

After a painful minute, Sokka spoke again. "I'm sorry for bringing all of this up right now, Katara. I guess maybe we should focus on the next two weeks first."

"Are you going back?" He voice betrayed how worried she was. "Or are you going North, or are you gathering our people?"

Sokka shook his head. "I don't know. I've been so focused on finding you before Solstice for the past few months that I haven't thought about it either. We'll see what happens I guess."

"Yeah, I guess," Katara, feeling smaller and more exhausted than she had in weeks.

* * *

Sokka grumbled the next morning when Katara woke him shortly after she changed back. It was strange going even a day without seeing Zuko, and she found she missed the constant companionship of the hawk on her shoulder.

Katara bent the stairs clear of the thin sheet of ice that slicked over them in the morning. As the sun rose and the ice melted, she still found herself removing water to make the steps less slippery.

They reached the round stone gate by late morning. Both siblings were panting and sweating heavily beneath their cloaks and took a moment to pass a water skin back and forth. Katara took in the institute while fanning herself and loosening the scarf around her neck. The courtyard was in disrepair, and she thought she saw an entrance to a garden behind the lower pagoda. Higher up the slope sat another pagoda, but it looked like nobody had lived there for decades.

"I hope Kyoshi knew what she was talking about," Katara grumbled to Sokka. He nodded in agreement.

A movement near the garden entrance made Katara reflexively reach for her knife. She relaxed when it turned out to be a white cat. Sokka had also brought his boomerang out, and she playfully shoved him and he smiled back before they walked toward the cat.

It was indeed a garden, and a hunched woman with stark white hair bent over a shrubby herb. She muttered under her breath, and Katara couldn't make anything out.

Sokka coughed to get the old woman's attention, and she whipped her head up to stare at them faster than she looked like she could move. Her bun was haphazard and frizzy, and her mouth collapsed in on itself so it looked like she no longer had lips. She had more wrinkles than anyone else Katara had ever seen before, but her sharp eyes were a brilliant green, like buds in spring. Sokka stepped back in surprise, but Katara stood her ground.

"Good morning," she started, bowing in respect. "We didn't mean to startle you, but news of your skills have traveled far, and we request your help." The formal speech rolled off her tongue by second-nature, and she was a little relieved she could still pull off that refined edge.

The woman cackled. "Oh Miyuki, what have you brought me today! These mice look more like fish to me – have you been playing in the pond again?" The woman leaned down to the white cat's level and tweaked its nose while it rubbed against her leg.

Katara felt her heart drop. For all the awareness behind her eyes, this woman was _insane_.

"Many Earth Kingdom troops have stopped here and I always patch them up better than when they came in. Yes, it has been too long since I saw those nice Earth Kingdom boys," the woman prattled on. "Strong boys, like ostrich horses. But what are two fish doing here, looking so dried far from the sea?"

Katara swallowed her discomfort. In the corner of her eye, Sokka shifted his weight and discreetly placed his hand on the pummel of his machete. "I'm trying to access the Spirit World," she said. "And we heard you might know of herbs that can help."

The woman narrowed her eyes at Katara. "It does no good to meddle in the realm of the spirits," she said and reached a thin claw-like hand out toward Katara's arm. "Off to find your sweetheart there? So many young girls try. I'm sorry to say more than a few of them attempt it by throwing themselves from my back step if I won't help them in their quest."

Katara looked down and covered the woman's gnarled hand with her own. The herbalist's hand was ice cold, covered in an aging topography of veins. "The spirits have meddled with me, and I seek justice," she said simply.

The woman' hand snatched up and grabbed Katara's chin. She held Katara's face still and searched her eyes for something for a long moment. Katara was afraid to blink. The herbalist chuckled low.

"Well it looks like I was wrong about you. You are not a fish at all, are you? I have just the thing for you," she patted Katara's cheek with her free hand and released Katara's face. "Miyuki! Watch our visitors while I fill this little wolf's order." She hobbled to a greenhouse at the end of the garden.

Katara bent to put her hands on her knees and inhaled sharply, feeling as though she had just passed a test of a sort.

Sokka exhaled slowly, as though he hadn't breathed during the whole exchange. He leaned toward her. "Okay, little _wolf_," he whispered. "How much creepier could this get?"

Miyuki the cat yowled at him, and Sokka jerked back upright. The cat sat, staring the two of them down silently, until the woman returned.

"All right, fierce little wolf, brew this as a tea," she said as she handed Katara a fat envelope the size of her hand. "There is enough there you can take a few trips to sort out your business with the spirits. And don't forget to come back for your moon tea once you work things through with your sweetheart."

Katara sputtered thanks, and asked the woman what payment she required. "Tell my Earth Kingdom boys to come back and visit. And I hope to see you again as well! I'll start making a new batch just for you."

The woman led them back to the gate, and watched until they were out of sight down the stairs.

It wasn't until they reached the bottom that Sokka spoke again. "Can we double-time it off this mountain? And if you come back here for your _moon tea_, make Zuko go with you."

* * *

The tea the herbalist gave Katara helped heighten their senses to the spirits who were constantly around but not noticed by most people. The more they talked about what they saw and heard, the less interested Toph and Sokka were in trying the tea with them.

Katara saw shin-high white spirits near the stream where she refilled their water skins. They lived in the water and the trees. Their eyes and mouths were black voids, and when she spoke to them they twisted their heads to the side and loosened them back quickly, creating a rattling noise. Even at their campsite on the temple balcony, Katara started hearing rattling echo across the mountains and through the empty streets. They never seemed dangerous or threatening, just curious of the human aware of their presence.

Zuko, on the other hand, found he could speak to flames. The first time the cook fire spoke to him, he dropped a pan of fresh turkey duck Sokka had hunted that day, and his face turned a shade of white. The fire sassed him, but he found that if he kept him fed, he was enjoyable company while the rest of the group slept in the deadest part of the night.

For all of the spirits they saw in the physical world, neither was having luck visiting the Spirit World. While sitting on the balcony and meditating while waiting for the sun to set, Katara glimpsed a pool in a forest, and a deer-like spirit with dozens of antlers glowing and its neck elongating before she was pulled back into the physical world by her transformation. Zuko's voice called her name frantically, and her eyes snapped open to see the fear in his retreat. Then the fear was nowhere to be seen and he touched her face with the back of his hand and it was morning again.

Aang met more of his past lives. There was Kuruk the waterbender, Yangchen the airbender, Kobe the firebender, Hu the earthbender, and the cycle kept rewinding until the connections felt more frayed and distant.

They advised him about the Spirit World and shared some of the obstacles they faced in their lifetimes. Kuruk of the Northern Water Tribe knew the Faceless One.

"He's not faceless anymore – he steals others' for his own use. Koh is one of the oldest spirits, and I never figured out how he is able to trap so many humans in his black deals from the Spirit World."

"How does he steal faces?" Aang asked.

"He feeds on emotion. If you keep your faces flat, no matter what is in your heart, you can survive," Kuruk warned. "If he steals your face, you will remain an empty shell for the rest of your life."

"Koh the face-stealer," Aang repeated.

If he slept now, he didn't remember it. He must have, though, because they all said he spoke in his sleep. The others in the group heard one-sided arguments with Sozin, curses at Chin the Conqueror, and once Zuko shook him awake when he screamed at Amon the Equalizer not to take his bending from him.

He forgot how time passed, and constantly checked the countdown to the Solstice they had posted on the wall. He barely ate. The others hushed their conversations around him, and even Katara and Zuko pressed him less to share information on the spirits they saw.

"Aang, I think we need to talk," Katara sat down with him one morning by the campfire while Toph and Sokka discussed possible armor designs for Appa. "You've turned into a different person in the past few days."

"I'm finding out more about the Spirit World," he said, trying to dismiss her concerns. "They're more restless now that the Solstice is close and I'm reaching out to them." He wasn't sure about this, but he wanted to inspire belief.

"As much as Zuko and I appreciate the effort you're putting into this, we need you to be healthy after Solstice too. The world needs you to be able to help," she said gently.

Aang felt a rage like he had never know bubble up and burst all at once. "The world needs to figure out how to solve its own problems. Millions of people need to depend on themselves instead of me." Now that he had started, he couldn't hold back the flood that had built up over weeks. "I'm only sixteen – I wasn't alive when this war started, so why do I have to be the one to end it? One man can only do so much, and it's hard enough to just help you and your boyfriend."

As soon as he looked at Katara, he realized he had gone too far. She stared at a point on the floor, and Aang could see her jaw clench. "I'm sorry that we were such a burden on you. We'll figure something out. Thanks for the help you've offered so far," she said, her voice quiet and dangerous.

"Katara, I'm sorry," he started.

"No, you don't get to say those things and then think it will all be fine" it was her turn to explode and she stepped closer. "We've never asked you to do this by yourself. You think we're going to just leave you to figure out how to end the war on your own in a week? How dare you be so selfish."

Aang felt the rage roll off of her in waves, and his insides were hollow. He didn't react when she shoved him, he just fell into the railing for the balcony. She cried now. "If it's so hard for you to be here, then leave. Go hide out at one of your temples and spend the rest of your life meditating and keep your fucking secret."

He hadn't meant for this to go so far. He didn't believe what he said, and he saw that now. Sokka and Toph had stopped talking and stared at him with wide eyes and open mouths. He felt as disgusted with himself as the others looked. He couldn't apologize, and he couldn't defend himself so he did the only thing he could.

He ran.


	11. Chapter 11

Two words: Emotional Hangover

* * *

The moment Aang vaulted over the edge of the balcony and skipped down the mountain, Katara knew that the argument had gone too far on both sides. She didn't remember moving, but she was leaning over the railing, watching the trees and bushes below rustle and sway. She cried out Aang's name. At least, it felt like her vocal cords were the ones producing that noise, but she didn't recognize the animalistic howl.

Her face was so wet. Could you drown yourself in sobs? She clawed her arms out because she couldn't breathe, and something was trying to pull her under.

And then her big brother's arms were around her and his voice was soothing in her ear, and it would be okay because her big brother could fix this. Aang apparently had not trusted her and had ignored how she had tried to help him since the day she met him. She had told one of her best friends to go away, and he had followed her order. Somehow this hurt more than anything else she had experienced in her life – worse than her family leaving her in the Fire Nation, worse than the day she couldn't find Zuko until the hawk that had followed her for hours landed at dusk and transformed before her.

She didn't care if Toph traveled back to Gao Ling, or Sokka sailed north, or Zuko searched for his uncle in Ba Sing Se, or Aang and Appa flew back to the Air Temples, or she sailed south to help rebuild. She didn't care about what they did, as long as the five of them (six, with Appa) did it together. They could change the world, this strange mash-up of young men and women from all four nations. It felt right, as though the fates had preordained it.

But Aang didn't seem to see it that way. He thought the weight of the world rested on his shoulders alone, and didn't realize each of them were willing to bear it with him.

She sobbed into her brother's tunic, blowing snot into the fabric. The back of her mind felt bad about it and promised to wash it out, but the rest of her was trying desperately not to fall apart completely. She was failing. She didn't feel bad about fighting with the Avatar – she felt bad about fighting with her best friend.

Even when her entire body stopped shivering and the hiccups ceased –_ when did those even start?_ – her brother rocked her and she realized Toph – _Tough Toph_ – was sponging her face with a wet rag, holding her cheek gently with one hand while cleaning off the salty tracks with the other. The hawk – _her_ hawk – was on her shoulder and rubbing against her hair like human Zuko would do when she was upset, and all of the fears she and Sokka had discussed a week before flooded back again.

* * *

Aang had been running for an hour or so, and was nearly at the base of the mountain when something whipped out and stabbed his shoulder. His arm was simultaneously on fire and freezing over, and the sensation spread through the rest of his body.

_Good,_ he thought. _Now everything has turned to shit._

He had been flying at a decent clip, and wasn't sure what could have hit him. Once he lost control of his balance and legs, though, he bounced until he came to a stop, face down in the dirt. He lay there waiting, wondering if this was just a weird Avatar lock-down-defense mechanism to keep him from doing anything incredibly stupid.

If it were, it was too late for it to work.

The longer he stayed there, smelling the dirt, muscles spasming and overall just feeling like shit, the more he resigned himself to whatever happened next.

"Okay, Avatar what's-your-face," he wanted to yell. "I'm ready for your lesson and you to tell me again what a shitty person I am."

He didn't yell though, because he couldn't breathe deeply enough.

Something large and four-legged ambled out of the forest from behind him. It was sniffing a lot, like it was trying to find him. It sounded _very _large.

_Great,_ he thought. _Now something is going to eat me because the Avatars have decided to teach me a lesson and I can't fight it._

"Oh good girl, Nyla," a woman's voice came from the same direction as the sniffing. "I think we've got a live one."

He heard boots hit the ground as somebody dismounted. Footsteps came closer, and someone dragged him up by his collar and he found himself face-to-face with a woman with black hair and dark clothing.

"Oh yes, definitely a live one," she practically purred. She flipped him over onto his back and he fell back down on the ground, staring up at the tops of trees and blue skies.

The sniffing continued. "Yes Nyla, you'll get your reward once we confirm this, good girl," she cooed at the animal.

The woman loomed over him, holding a small orange fan above him. He felt puzzled until he saw that it was attached to the base of a staff, broken off to be a smaller piece. His eyes widened when he realized it was the foot fan on has air glider. Too late, he attempted to school his features.

The woman smirked and tossed the fan to the side. "Yep, I'd say that's a positive," she said as she leaned down to pick Aang up again.

His head lolled down, watching his feet drag on the ground before his face fell into unwashed fur. It reeked of sweat, fear, and rotten meat.

The woman tied his wrists together, placed them above his head, and then hoisted him over her saddle so he was bent across the creature's neck. He looked down at talons as big as his hands. She bound his knees together, and climbed after him, whipping the animal into a trot.

For the first ten minutes on the move, Aang had no control over his body. His face bumped into the side of whatever animal they were on – he still hadn't gotten a good look at it. He could do little more than drool, so asking questions and getting answers was also out of the question.

Little by little, though, he regained control of his body. He swallowed better and could turn his head to the side and stick it away from the animal to avoid the retched smell.

After some time like this, he turned his face toward the woman. There wasn't much to see from his perspective, but he studied her black-clad knee and wondered how this was going to end. If she had the glider… their destination filled him with dread.

"How long is this going to last?" he stuttered through his locked jaw.

"The whole paralysis, or just the drool phase?" she responded.

"Unh," he said as they jumped over some downed trees. "Both."

"You should be out of drool phase soon, if you're not already," she said. "It's not exactly my favorite part to deal with either."

"So who exactly are you?" he asked as the hard edge of the leather saddle replaced the burning tingle in his ribs.

"Don't worry about it, airbender," came the reply.

"Whoa now, I think you have the wrong guy. Who said anything about airbending?" Aang objected weakly. Maybe he could convince her that she had made a mistake. Maybe.

She said nothing but poked the blue tattoos on his hands.

"Oh, these?" Aang said. "You know the kids these days… we'll do anything to seem cool. I just like the way the airbending tattoos look, you know?"

"Mm-hmm," she said.

A million other questions ran through his head, but he didn't want to press his luck. He sat and thought instead. She had part of his glider, so she probably worked for Zhao. He had a good idea of where she was taking him, and a cold stone rumbled in his stomach.

"What should I call you then?" trying to forge a personal connection.

"Kid, if you don't shut up, I'm going to gag you before we get back to Pohuai. It's a long enough trip as it is."

His guess confirmed, he followed the woman's advice and stopped talking. He turned his head back to face forward. As he did, he felt a wooden bulge dig into his chest. His mind filled with hope as he wondered how soon he could use his air bison whistle.

* * *

Katara had been sitting in a catatonic state since she had quieted down a few hours before. Toph's preferred method of dealing with stress was to beat something or someone up, but she would have killed at that moment for a swig of booze. Although, she reflected, maybe if she had to kill for it she would no longer need the booze.

Their camp was quickly getting colder like it did just before the sun set, and Aang still hadn't returned, leaving her without a deserving punching bag. Instead she reformed and redesigned the ceiling of their balcony to feel more like – well, _look _more like, for the others – the inside of the temple sanctuary.

Every time she walked through the hall, she got a thrill knowing about the columns that soared dozens of feet in the air around her before they exploded out into flying arches to support the ceiling. They were like upside-down trees, the roots flying out in orderly designs. There were still tons of solid rock above them, yet it was all supported on a delicate system of stone in star and floral patterns. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Toph had ever encountered in her life, including the underground Spirit Library, and she was the only one in the group who could sense it in its entirety.

She wondered if the old Earthbending Masters of Taku had used their earthbending to listen and sense their surroundings like she did. Sokka had investigated with her – he said there were no windows, no signs of large chandeliers that would have hung up, and no way mere torches could light the ceiling. His only other guess was something with mirrors. Toph didn't care beyond the fact that all signs point to the designer only building the arches and patterns for people who could sense them.

She could tell the moment the sun vanished because Zuko was suddenly sitting next to Katara, pulling her to him and murmuring to her. That was the most amazing part of their situation, she thought. Not that they couldn't remember what they did in their animal forms, but that when they changed they could transition from doing whatever they had been doing in their animal forms to doing it in their human forms.

She tried to ignore them, but it was too sweet not to make her feel _something_. Once Katara had four legs again, Zuko came over and studied her art project.

"So, what horrible thing happened today?" he asked as inspected her handiwork. "Do we have to kill somebody to make it better? And do we have any alcohol?"

Toph tried to smirk but her heart wasn't in it. When she recounted the day's events to Zuko, he kicked at a pile of her scrap rubble.

"I guess we'll just have to see if he comes back then," he said softly. "I was kind of looking forward to helping him get rid of my father," he added so quietly Toph didn't think she would have heard him if she hadn't been listening to his heart beat.

* * *

They stopped for camp shortly before the sun set. The saddle had definitely bruised the left side of his torso, and his arms felt dislocated from their sockets after dangling above his head for so long.

The woman tugged him off the animal by the back of his shirt and deposited him in a pile in the middle of the clearing. His arms flopped down mercifully, and parts of his neck and back he didn't know about popped and creaked. The change in position made most of his muscles burn and shake from cramping.

He slowly pushed himself into a kneeling position with his bound wrists in his lap. The bison whistle still hung around his neck, nestled into the layers of his clothes. Escape plans and rescue plots flitted through his mind, as he observed his captors.

The woman removed the saddle from the creature – Nyla – and rubbed her down. She pulled a slab of rancid-looking meat out of a pouch on the saddle and tossed it toward it. Its barbed tongue shot out to catch its prize, and Aang suddenly thought he had a better understanding of what hit him.

He still had no idea what it was, though. It was slightly smaller than Appa, but had no eyes. Instead, its nose took up about half of its face. He didn't care what it was; Aang decided he had finally found one animal he absolutely detested. He would have rather taken on a grumpy Zuko-hawk for eternity than ever deal with this slithering mammal again.

His attention drifted back to the bounty hunter. She looked like she was of Earth Kingdom descent, but her clothing and demeanor were colored by the endless war. She wore all black, and just about the only bit of skin exposed were her shoulders and upper arms, where red snakes eating their own tails were tattooed. Aang had never seen anything like it, and wondered if they were for vanity or a mark of some kind.

As she came closer, he noticed her topknot was secured with a pin that looked like a skull.

"I'm going down to the stream to clean up. Nyla will strike you again if you try to move," she said without looking at him. "Here, might as well eat something you obviously enjoy before tomorrow."

He opened the pouch and went light-headed. It was full of the nuts he had enjoyed so much on their journey to Taku.

_How long has she been following us?_ He wondered. _Are the others still safe, or were there others?_

He slumped forward, and the bison whistle poked him again. He glanced around and yanked on the leather cord around his neck to pull it out. Nyla lounged a few meters from him, and he whispered a small prayer before blowing the high-pitched whistle.

Nyla immediately went berserk. She whined a high pitched yowl before running away from the camp. Aang wished he had taken his leg bindings off before attempting this escape, but stood and began tried to get them off.

Something hit his head from behind and pinched a point in his neck that made his body go numb.

"What did you do to my shirshu, Airbender?" The woman's voice was hot and dangerous in his ear. She yanked the bison whistle and leather cord from around his neck and cursed.

The paralysis from the shirshu venom before had been uncomfortable, but this nerve pain burned. "Just trying to survive," he wheezed.

The bounty hunter hit a different pressure point, and though he fought for consciousness, he slipped into darkness.

He awoke just before dawn. To the east, past the mountains, the sky was a lighter grey. Clouds hung heavily overhead, and he wondered how soon it would be before they released a torrent of rain on them.

The bounty hunter was already packing up camp. The shirshu had come back whether on its own accord or the woman chasing it through the forest, Aang couldn't tell.

She noticed he was awake and squatted on the ground in front of him. He peered up at her.

"Listen kid, we can either do this the hard way or mine," she said, staring at him. "Do I need to have Nyla paralyze you again, or are you going to sit in the saddle on your own?"

Aang moved into a kneeling position and the world spun and he leaned over to vomit. The woman jumped out of the way.

"Your answer," she said.

"Your way, for now," he said.

She stared at him for a beat longer and nodded.

Once she had him tied into the back of the saddle to her satisfaction, they took off again. Aang enjoyed the ride better from this position. Even though his hands and legs were bound, the air blew through his hair and he could breathe.

They stopped midafternoon. She pulled him off the saddle and propped him against a tree next to the rank Nyla.

Aang finally asked the question that had been nagging at him since the night before. "How long have you been tracking me?"

The woman didn't look up as she pulled out some dried food and a water skin. "Since you dumped that private on the beach and flew away. We almost gave up, you know, until we caught a lucky break with that trail of nut shells out of the Stone Fingers."

Aang cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "Did you go to the Stone Fingers?"

She shrugged and gulped down some water. "One of the nuns mentioned you had gone that way." She stopped eating and cocked her head to one side, her eyes calculating and speculative.

A chilly blast of wind picked up a trickle of sweat on the back of his neck, and he shivered. A hard lump started rolling around the pit of his stomach.

"You know, I try to be lenient with the locals. You never know when you might need help again, and sweetness works better than the sword," she continued, not taking her gaze off of his face. "And one of the sisters, when she heard I was looking for you and that I wasn't going to harm you, opened up a little more."

Aang couldn't hold her eye contact, but he feared what breaking it would tell her. He swallowed hard and tried to keep his face as emotionless as possible as she leaned closer.

"So, Avatar, if I don't return with you and word gets out that I bailed on an assignment, Zhao will likely send out a hit for me. No matter what I might believe or think, I need to look after myself," as she kept talking, Aang realized she wasn't pleading with him. She was trying to reconcile with herself.

"Look, I get it," he began weakly. "It's just – can't you let me go? I won't say anything – I might even be able to help you. Just return me to my friends and we'll keep you safe."

She smiled sadly and chuckled. "The real world, out here beyond your Air Temples, doesn't always work out. You seem like a nice enough kid, aside from that stunt last night. But your spirit took too long on the other side and the world didn't stay nice enough for you. It's dog eat dog, and I'm nobody's snack."

Aang collapsed back on himself. The little flutter of hope he had dropped back into the pit. He barely noticed as the bounty hunter patted down his clothing, probably looking for knives or another whistle.

"Nyla will keep you company until I'm back," she said before vanishing into the forest.

* * *

Aang has really taken over my Zutara story here. Nobody is more annoyed than I am because I just want fluff, but the plot keeps getting in the way.


	12. Chapter 12

As soon as the messenger came to tell him the bounty hunter was approaching the fortress gates on foot without her venomous companion, the freshly promoted Admiral Zhao knew that the situation would require a delicate touch. He ordered that she be shown to the lounge and offered a drink – the middle-grade fire whiskey most of the officers drank would do – and dismissed the soldier.

He shuffled his papers, tapped them into an orderly pile and placed them in the center of his desk to be dealt with later. The Admiral then stood from his chair and strode over to the window in his office and looked out at the mountains. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, chest out. At dusk, it was a magnificent view, when the sun turned the sky a blood red just before slipping beneath the horizon.

There were larger and better rooms elsewhere in the fortress, but he liked to face the Fire Nation and watch the sun set. Ironic, that so many of their rituals focused on the east and the rising sun, but their homeland was the last civilization it saw before the night set in. Sometimes Zhao wondered if the sun wanted to pass over the wretched Earth Kingdom first, especially that great pit of sand, and just get it over with each day.

The sun would not set for an hour or two, though, which meant he might not see this vista again for a while. He knew the Avatar was close, and he would capture him again. Embarrassing how he had slipped his grasp before – the former captain of the prison guards had been given the option of seppuku, and Zhao believed he had actually smiled when he gave the order for the clean up of the captain's former quarters when it was done.

Zhao traced the slope of the hills with his eyes and looked down on the river one last time before turning to the dressing table in the corner. He combed his sideburns, smoothed his topknot, and brushed the wool of his uniform. He licked his thumb and bent to rub out a scuff on his boot, making note to have his valet shine them again that night.

He was pleased to see the bounty hunter had accepted the offer of a drink and was lounging on a couch, one leg crossed and an arm draped across the back. He had the servant prepare himself a glass of whiskey – the highest quality from the island of Kasai – and sat opposite her, mirroring her posture, if a little straighter and less sprawled.

"June, lovely to see you again," he said, swirling the contents of his glass before taking a small sip. His next words were pointed. "It's been too long."

"I hear you've been promoted since the last time we spoke," she said in her throaty voice.

"Yes, the Fire Lord has been appreciative of my work," he said, satisfied with the direction of the conversation. "He knows that I accept nothing but the best from myself and hold those around me to the same standard." He paused, and she broke eye contact to look down at her drink. He continued. "So tell me bounty hunter, why have you returned empty handed? I thought you would have given up on this hunt weeks ago rather than admit defeat."

"I have never given up on a search, and don't intend to start any time soon. You know that I am the best and demand that my clients treat me accordingly," she said, arching an eyebrow at him. "And I do not like it when my clients only promise payment for an airbender when my quarry turns out to be the Avatar."

"I did not send you after the Avatar; I sent you after an escaped prisoner," he said, interest piqued. It seemed the prophesy from the Fire Sages had not let him down after all.

"Let's just say my search led me to some revealing conclusions," she demurred. She finished off her drink. Zhao did not move to offer her another.

"So you believe the boy is the Avatar and are now demanding, what, double the price?" He pressed.

She chuckled darkly. "At least. I was thinking at least triple, and an improved contract for my services."

"Well I see no airbender with you, Avatar or not. I will not negotiate something so speculative."

"Admiral Zhao, I would not dream of cheating you. I simply came to collect the share you originally promised. Then, when you see that the boy is indeed the Avatar, my bonus and reworked contract," she said.

Zhao wondered if he should just order the Yuyan archers to shoot an arrow in her back as she left after the Avatar was delivered. _No, _he thought. _She may prove to be an asset if I agree to her terms now. Always the option to send an assassin later._

He took another sip of his whiskey and smiled his cold smirk. "What of the others? Did you find any signs of the water witch or the banished prince?"

She waved a hand. "The three of them split after returning that Private. Besides, my contract was for the airbender."

Zhao thought her eyes flickered a little too much. "And the flying bison?"

"Perhaps he sent it to one of the temples without him. I saw no sign of it," she replied, her pitch a little higher.

Zhao watched her critically and carefully sipped his whiskey again. Her shoulders looked tenser than they had a few minutes before, and he could see the muscles in her neck work as she swallowed. The silence stretched on as he sipped his whiskey and wondered what she was hiding, and how important it was. Perhaps he would send an assassin after all, and let him collect this bounty as his price. The sooner he tracked her, the larger the reward. Zhao smiled to himself, liking this plan.

"Lady June, you drive a hard bargain. I will order your payment be processed immediately. I trust that the Avatar is safely trussed up and stowed someplace, or you wouldn't be here." She ran a hand across her bangs, sweeping the hair, and what may have been a bead of sweat, out of her cold eyes. "If you do not return with him within an hour of when you step foot outside of this gate, you will not be able to run far enough away to escape my wrath. Do you understand?"

"Admiral Zhao," she said, her voice harder. "I brought you the Avatar after weeks of hunting. You may think my values questionable, but I abide by my own code."

Zhao drained his glass. "Then I expect to see you again before nightfall," he said as he strode out of the lounge.

After issuing a few more orders to prepare a steamer and issue the bounty hunter her payment, he visited the Fire Temple. He lit a candle on his way in and knelt on a red cushion in front of a wall of flame. The orange flicker on the rest of the room soothed him; this was the only place in the fortress where he was not to be bothered unless hell itself was raining down on them.

The Admiral had always been a determined man; even when he was just a boy he realized the fierce _want_ and fire within was the Spirit's way of marking him. He was not without his faults – no man was – but focusing on them would do nothing to advance his vision for the Fire Nation.

His inner fire drove him to be the best that the Fire Nation could produce. He graduated at the top of his class from the military academy and rose quickly through the ranks. He felt the most formative time of his life, however, was when he discovered the Spirit Library in the sand-drenched wastelands to the east. There, he learned about the Spirits and their power. He focused on the most ancient, those original benders.

He cursed Iroh the Fool for killing the last of the dragons – the magnificent beasts that taught their forefathers how to take the fire they had been granted and turn it into an art. This was before he had retreated from Ba Sing Se like a dog with its tail between its legs, before the rest of the Fire Court saw him for what he was – an old fat fool.

The banished prince was no better. Zhao heard the stories about the Lady Ursa and her scandalous turn in the theater before her engagement and rushed nuptials. The boy was born early; it didn't take a bright man to read into the implications of the whole affair. The boy had been lucky to be born and live past infancy, and that was that. Even if his mother was the granddaughter of Avatar Roku, Ozai had the blood of every other Fire Avatar who had lived coursing through his veins.

Really, he had been doing his patriotic duty when he finally tracked down Koh the Face Stealer and struck a bargain with him. True, it hadn't turned out the way he had imagined – the boy still had his mangled face at times, but involving the water witch was a nice touch.

After he finished his meditation and bowed to the brilliant flame, he walked back to his office to write out his departure speech. The hardest part of the war turned out to be not at the front, but in the hearts and minds of the people. It was no concern, though. Words and ideas were just as important as battle strategies, and Admiral Zhao exceled at manipulating all three.

* * *

The bounty hunter returned after a few hours with a new bulging purse on her waist.

"So Zhao was in a good mood, huh?" he asked. He had spent the time struggling against his bindings, resulting only in chafing his wrists more. She didn't reply as she rifled through the saddlebag. "You're really going through with this? You know I probably won't survive a month."

"Kid, even if you could double what Zhao's paying me, it's not like I could just retire to Ba Sing Se and spend all day sipping tea. The Fire Nation would find me," she said unhappily, pulling out some dried berries and a water skin. "But you can do your friends a favor."

Aang looked up at her, biting the inside of his cheek. She squatted down to his level shoving the food and water in his hands, and reaching her hand out and setting it on his shoulder.

"You split up long ago, just after the stunt with that soldier. You sent your air bison to a temple so you could blend in more easily," she spoke softly and peered into his eyes unblinking. She leaned her chin forward, as if making the words sink in better. "I don't know why you didn't go with him – that's your call. Don't say a thing about Taku or the nuns – I found you west of here on the high plains, mad with hunger and dehydration. Do you understand me?"

He stared at her, wondering what game she was playing, and why she was protecting his friends. She took something out of her hip pouch and placed it around his neck, dropping it beneath his shirt. He didn't see it, but he recognized the comfortable weight of his bison whistle against his chest.

She hesitated before speaking again. "The name's June," she said softly. "If you get out, and I'm still alive, and you need anything, I'll be lurking. Might even use this bounty to open my own bar."

She looked down and pursed her lips before looking up at him again. The end of her nose was pink, and her eyes had a sheen in them Aang hadn't seen before.

"Nyla's going to snap you again, but not as bad as the last time, alright?"

It may not have been as shocking as the first time he was paralyzed, but his muscles seized just the same. The regretful look on June's face made it hurt all the more.

* * *

It was past midnight, and the moon sat just above the horizon, growing fatter each night. Sokka and Toph had turned in hours before, disappointed that Aang hadn't returned that day either.

Zuko had just returned from the forest, gathering more kindling for the fire. The wolf padded next to him, her ears flat against her head for the second night in a row. He hated seeing her this way; she hadn't been this dejected in over a year.

The fire crackled happily as he fed it. Since he had started drinking the tea, he had noticed a pattern to the snaps, as though the flame could communicate with him. At first he wondered if the crazy old herbalist had just given them hallucinogens.

As he settled down next to the fire to try to understand more of what it could share, he felt peaceful. Instead of speaking to the fire, he closed his eyes in meditation and focused on his breath, just like his uncle had taught him.

Time passed – it could have been seconds, it could have been hours – as he listened to the fire. Suddenly, he realized it was no longer just crackling, it was actually singing a song.

Zuko didn't open his eyes so much as he looked up. He was no longer sitting next to a campfire in the forest. He stood on a flat stone, etched with an intricate knot design. Swampland surrounded him; the trees grew out of the water drunkenly lurching in every direction and curtains of moss draped over everything.

In the distance, a wolf the size of a building plodded across the horizon.

"Oh good! It worked," a crackly voice said to his left.

Zuko turned. It was the fire spirit, but in a different form. Instead of the small flame he was used to, the spirit had a humanoid shape. He came up to Zuko's waist, but the heat radiated off of him.

"Yeah it did," Zuko said, shocked that he had actually been able to meditate into the Spirit World. "What should I call you?"

The small flame sprite shook his head. "I don't have a name. I just am. Come on, you need to get back before the sun rises on the other side."

The flame jumped ahead of him through the swamp, showing Zuko where to step. Creatures taunted him from the darkness on either side of the path, but he stuck close to the fire spirit.

Zuko found his senses thrown off. Some of his steps seemed to take him miles at a time, other times he barely moved. Once he stopped listening for the voices in the darkness, he heard nothing at all.

Minutes or hours later, the Flame stopped at the end of the path before a series of stepping stones led up to a giant twisted tree. The large wolf Zuko had seen before appeared again before disappearing back into the mist.

"I don't want to go any further," the Flame said. He looked smaller somehow, as if he were afraid. "This is not a place even spirits like to go."

A shiver wrapped around Zuko's spine, but he exhaled to release it with the fear he felt. "I'll try to hurry."

"Don't forget. If you show any emotion, he'll take your face."

_Great,_ Zuko thought. _This is going to be just great._

Moss slimed over the stones, slipping under his boots. The water beneath the stones was inky, and impossible to tell its depth. A few yards away, bubbles popped lazily through the surface. Zuko shuddered to think what lurked in the water – _if it was water _ – and stepped carefully.

He pushed aside strings of vines when he arrived at the tree and entered the hollow tree. It was dim, and it took him a moment to adjust to the light. Something rustled behind and around him, and he schooled his breathing as though it were meditation. He allowed his mind to go blank, and looked up when he saw movement in front of him.

"Another firebender back so soon – I'm not used to so many visitors in such a short time," Koh breathed, slowly wrapping his tail around Zuko's feet.

Zuko looked impassively into the flat painted eyes of the Noh mask. Koh's many legs scuttled and tapped on the ground impatiently.

"I came to talk to you about a curse," he said carefully.

"I see the resemblance now – you aren't like that haughty Zhao at all, are you?" The Spirit said, peering at him closely. "You remind me of someone I met once."

His face blinked into a blue demon with white fangs and red eyes. The sight was familiar, like looking at a distortion of his reflection through a foggy mirror, but he brushed the thought off to keep his own face flat.

"I've heard you're responsible for the curse on a watertribe girl and me. Do you remember it?"

Koh looped himself around Zuko's body again. His hands twitched to clench into fists, but he fought the urge, closing his eyes to exhale.

"The lovers! Of course. You know, I love a good love story," he said as his face turned into a beautiful woman with long black hair blue eyes. "I've even ruined my fair share," he giggled.

"What would it take for you to reverse it?" Zuko focused on his breath, not how Katara's face would look on this oversized bug.

Koh changed back to the Noh mask and twisted around him for one more loop. "I do like a good riddle. If both of you can seek me and stand here in your human forms at the same time, I will lift that minor shape-shifting spell."

Zuko's shoulders relaxed and Koh darted in front, his expression hungry for a new face to add to his collection.

"There is one more thing, though," he said. Zuko nodded for him to continue.

"I've heard rumors that the new Avatar has been asking questions about breaking a curse on two of his friends."

Zuko felt cold dread drip from his heart.

"I have business to discuss. Bring him with you."

* * *

Some news: I'm in the middle of moving and starting a new job, so the super-fast update days are probably over. I see the end of this story in sight, though(!) and will attempt to update every week/ten days. Comments are always appreciated - I love hearing what you think!


	13. Chapter 13

Thank you reviewers, followers and readers! I rush-edited this, wanting to keep to my Wednesday posting schedule (otherwise you'd have to wait until Monday). Please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors (and maybe pm me about them - I'll fix them eventually)

* * *

June deposited Aang in a heap in the middle of the courtyard just after sundown. The combination of shirshu venom and despair made him woozy and a little apathetic about his surroundings. The sound of her claiming her bonus and feeding Nyla was background noise to the soldiers picking him up and hauling him away. His limbs twitched as he fought the poison to move.

His jailors didn't even notice his struggles, and one giant of a soldier slung his body over his shoulder. Aang watched his arms bounce off the man's back armor as the pavement of the courtyard underfoot gave way to a dark stone, then steps, and finally the damp rough rock in the pit of the fortress.

They laid him on what must have passed for a cot in a cell, but felt more like a used towel laid out over the bumpy floor. He watched shadows flicker on the ceiling. They loomed longer as they towered over him, and contorted as they bent to place clammy iron manacles around his wrists and ankles. They grew larger as they walked toward the weak light, and a door clanged shut. The shadows flickered less, and the only sounds Aang could hear were distant footsteps, clanking irons, and water dripping.

He tried to make his mind go blank and allow sleep to claim him for the hours before the venom wore off, but his thoughts chased each other through his mind, wondering where his friends were, if they were looking for him, and how he would get out of this mess.

* * *

Toph wondered if anyone would mind if a few rocks from the ceiling _accidentally_ got loose and fell on Zuko's head. He had shaken her awake before moving on to Sokka, and she was quite upset with the discourtesy.

"Leave m'lone," he mumbled, rustling and turning over.

Toph popped her neck and stretched her arms above her head, and knocked on the ground to find the pile of wood to bank the fire.

"Come on," Zuko said, and more shuffling ensued from that corner of the camp. "Toph, some help?"

That seemed to move Sokka. She didn't have to move so much as a pebble, and he shuffled closer to the fire in his sleeping bag. Toph shook the earth beneath the fire to stoke it, and Zuko and the wolf padded to the opposite side.

"This better be worth it, Sparky," she grumbled for effect. She wondered what had happened that would require waking them after a few hours of sleep but still fell short of the "flee on Appa with fireballs lobbing after them" level of emergency.

She felt much more alert after he recounted his Spirit World journey.

"I'm not even going to start with your little fire spirit friend," she said when he was finished. "But we just need to track down Aang wherever he's sulking and bring him back for the spirit trip with you and Katara? That sounds easy enough."

Sokka jumped in before Zuko spoke. His sleeping bag rustled as he fidgeted. "How do you know Koh's telling the truth though? It doesn't seem like it should be that easy."

Toph scooted a few inches back as the fire flared hotter. Sokka spoke quickly, "I just mean – do you think this is an empty promise, or is Koh going to follow through?"

Zuko exhaled slowly and he fire returned to its former intensity. "I don't know. I hadn't thought about it yet. He seemed like he was trying to trick me somehow, but maybe he doesn't know about the eclipse. Or the eclipse won't actually allow us both to be human at the same time. Or he knows something about Aang that we don't."

The implications of why Aang might not have returned hit Toph and she swallowed a lump. "He said that he had business with the Avatar," her voice came out stronger than she thought. "We just need to go out and search for Aang. How long until dawn?"

* * *

Aang regained control faster than he had the first day. He stood on shaky legs and tried to work the rest of the venom from his system. By what he guessed was morning, he paced his cell as far as his chains would allow. He had to credit Zhao for his attention to detail – he was in the same cell he had occupied months before, but there had been some renovations since his last visit. The chains attached to his manacles extended only about a meter to an impressively large bolt in the middle of the floor. He tried to yank on the chains, but his back hit the wall when he reached the end of the chains.

Even the grate he had escaped through the last time was out of reach. It looked freshly soldered to the floor, so it would not get him out of the dungeons again.

He wasn't able to sleep, and paced his small circle, testing the chains and trying different airbending techniques on them. He tired quickly and sat on the thin cot, trying to ignore his dry mouth and lack of food or water since the afternoon before.

He ran back through the events in the courtyard and realized Zhao hadn't actually been there. He had assumed that he would be taken directly to the Commander and interrogated, not thrown into a cell and ignored for hours.

After the venom wore off, the passage of time grew fuzzier. He heard distant creaks of doors and the incessant water drips somewhere closer, but nothing else. He wasn't sure how long it had been when he heard iron creak in the hallway outside of his cell. He watched the shadows through the bars. As the footsteps clacked closer to his door, the shadows grew smaller until three men stood outside his door.

He sat in lotus position, the chains on his ankles digging into his shins. He watched as one of the masked soldiers pulled out a set of keys and opened the door. The man in the middle stood with his hands clasped behind his back and nodded to the other soldier. He and the one with the door keys came forward. Aang looked up at them as they towered over him.

The man in the hallway cleared his throat. Unlike the other two, his face was bare. "Excuse me, young Airbender. We are here to take you to your new quarters."

Aang looked between the two masked soldiers and slowly stood. They unlocked his manacles.

"Admiral Zhao regrets the treatment you have received. The guards at the gate did not follow their orders. Please come with me," he said in a no-nonsense voice.

Aang stared at him, rubbing his left wrist and wondering what sort of ploy was afoot. As they ascended the stairs, he wished the guards had been unmasked as well so he could read their moods. Did they expect him to run, or was this some sort of cruel joke? Perhaps he could try his bison whistle, if they left him alone. He had little hope of Appa hearing it from this distance, though.

The officer and the two masked guards escorted him up the stairs. When they stepped out into the courtyard, Aang blinked in the bright afternoon sun. His stomach growled, but if the others heard they said nothing. They led him into the main building of the fortress. The hallways were enclosed, lit by candles and lanterns. He tried to keep track of the twists and turns, but everything they passed looked the same and he swore they climbed the same set of stairs twice. After a brisk walk through the halls, the officer opened a metal door. Aang noticed he did not use keys to unlock it, and there was a handle on the inside as well.

"Please feel free to clean up. The Admiral would like you to join him for tea in an hour," the officer said. His face could have been a mask as well, for the little emotion he showed.

The door clanged shut, and Aang looked around the room. There was a small window, almost more of a vent, a chest of drawers and a small attached bathroom. He tested the door back into the hall. It clicked open, and a masked guard stood facing him.

"Just checking," Aang said in way of explanation before slamming the door shut, leaning against it. He wondered if the door would be locked at night, when the firebenders would not be as strong. May as well clean up and play along with Zhao to see what he wanted.

* * *

Private Tatsuo, for once, was relieved for the anonymity the firebending mask gave him as he faced Aang's door. Tatsuo had not know what his assignment was until he met Colonel Shino at the top of the steps to the prison in his full regalia.

He was still unsure about his assignment. If Aang – if _the airbender_ – attempted to run, he couldn't decide if he would subdue him, or if that would contradict the host policy they were apparently following. Tatsuo just prayed that he would not flee. He did not want to anger the gods, but he also didn't need anyone else questioning his loyalty to the Fire Nation.

Since the rescue party had picked him up on the beach nearly a day after he had been left there, Zhao had had assigned him to assist his secretary. His new post required little more of him than to transcribe letters and arrange the messenger hawks for them. Katara – _the waterbender_ – had sped his healing process so much that the doctor doubted his leg had been badly injured at all. He still worked from the desk, and could walk within two weeks of his return. Zhao questioned him lightly – there was no intense interrogation like he had expected – but he had also collected little information, as he had been unconscious for most of his imprisonment.

As he stared at the airbender's door, he thought about the few days he had spent with the strange camp. He had thought often of the strange conversation he had with the banished prince and the waterbender, turning over one phrase in particular. Since returning, he thought about the orders he followed. He still didn't question them, and he still carried them out, but he wondered if this entire struggle would be worth it.

Just the evening before, he had handed over the bonus to the bounty hunter, then climbed the messenger hawk tower to send a note to a rather efficient Fire Bending assassin who had recently moved to the colonies. No orders, just details about the obscene amount of money the woman with the Shirshu had earned, and how if something were to happen to this particular contract killer, the powers at Pohuai would look the other way.

His skin crawled as he thought about killing off an Earth Kingdom woman loyal to the Fire Nation. If this war was really to improve the lives of the other nations, it seemed counterintuitive to kill off one willing to work with them.

* * *

Zhao normally didn't bother with the full tea ceremony – he found it to be a tiresome tradition that he wished would die out – but wanted to impress the best of Fire Nation hospitality upon the young airbender.

The boy walked in, wearing the earthiest red clothing his chest had contained. Zhao smoothed his eyebrow back down from where it had arched, and attempted his friendliest look. He knew it was not his smile, so he attempted to put a light behind his eyes.

"Welcome, young airbender," he said, kneeling at the low tea table. He motioned to the cushion across the table from his. The airbender glanced around the room and knelt. Zhao nodded curtly at the guard, who left the room. Zhao watched him retreat from the corner of his eye as he looked across the table. "As you may know, I am Admiral Zhao. And what is your name?"

The airbender licked his lips and shifted nervously. "Aang," he said so quietly Zhao strained to hear.

Zhao poured tea in the boy's cup first, and then his own. "I do apologize for the miscommunication last night," he said smoothly. "The guards at the gate did not follow my orders to have you placed in the visitors quarters."

The boy stared at him, the blue arrowhead on his forehead crinkling in confusion or surprise. When it was obvious he was not going to speak, Zhao picked up a plate of dumplings and passed them to the airbender. He seemed to waver before placing two on his plate. He picked one up and took a bite.

Zhao continued softly. "If we had known who you were the last time you visited, it may have gone differently." The boy put the uneaten dumpling half on the plate and he chewed the other a little too well before swallowing. He took a sip of tea, watching Zhao over the cup.

He lowered the tea cup, cradling it with his fingertips. "What do you want with me Zhao?"

Zhao took a dumpling himself and took a small bite. He chewed, placing the rest on his plate and dabbing at his lips with a napkin. "How have you enjoyed your travels since the last time we met?"

Aang gripped his cup more tightly. "I've seen more of the ground without my glider."

"Ah, such a pity that your glider broke when you landed here the first time. I am glad it proved useful for the Lady June to track you down and save you from any untoward fate." Zhao felt light, and his smile may have been less of a farce than usual.

The airbender stopped talking, and popped the rest of his dumpling in his mouth. He chewed and hunched over, folding his arms over his chest. Zhao thought he would try a different approach.

"Do you know why the world is in such chaos? It's because the people have forgotten the basic reason for existence. We were not meant to toil for the status quo – we are meant for so much greater things. The first Avatar Wan was born of fire – did you know that? I read ancient scrolls about him when I found Wan Shi Tong's library."

The airbender had set his cup down and just stared at Zhao with his furrowed look. Zhao took a sip from his own cup before refilling the airbender's.

"What does any of this have to do with me?" the boy asked.

Zhao smiled with his lips pursed. "I was told that the newest addition to the line of Avatars would fall at my feet. I did not realize at the time the message would be so… literal."

The boy looked paler. "You're crazy to think I'm the Avatar." His voice shook a little.

Zhao leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table. "The bounty hunter said that she had good information that you were the Avatar. I don't know exactly who she heard that from, but I'm sure we could easily figure it out. We could pay a visit to those nuns first."

"Okay, so hypothetically," the airbender enunciated each syllable. "I'm the Avatar. What do you want with me?"

Zhao tried to keep his smile from looking too shark-like. "What do you think it was like for the first people who conquered the night with light, who tasted roasted game? Fire is the base of all of civilization and industry. Just look at your people – what sort of future do you have planned? The people of the Fire Nation represent progress for all mankind, and your people cling to the old ways. Even the Earth Kingdom cannot rise above the mud of their history, and the Water Tribes cannot stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to do more than sustain in their ice huts. We must stop trying to fight change and move forward into a new dawn."

The airbender sat back on his heels, shoulders slumped. "So you want me to help the Fire Nation dominate the rest of the world?"

Zhao chuckled. "We're not looking to dominate anyone. We are merely attempting to enlighten the other nations. What should we aspire to, if not something better?"

The boy shook his head. "You can't justify trying to wipe out the Air Nomads a century ago as 'enlightenment' any more than you can justify this war with the Earth Kingdom."

Zhao shook his head. "The battles of the Air Temples were of a different era. Fire Lord Ozai has different priorities than his father and grandfathers before. Enlightenment, bringing the rest of the world out of the muck and into the light. That is why Wan became the first Avatar. It is no coincident that he was born of fire."

The airbender pushed back from the table and folded his legs into a lotus pose. "It doesn't matter who was first – it's a cycle. Maybe Wan realized that Fire alone wasn't enough to keep peace between the spirits and humans, and that's why he sought out the gifts of the other three elements."

Zhao tried to get a word in, but the boy continued. Zhao thought his tattoos glowed a little as he became more emotional. "You've constructed this origin myth to justify horrible atrocities. If fire brought us out of the darkness, what about the food we get from the earth? Or the water, where the first people were born? Or the air, which holds the sun and moon up from the earth, keeping them from crushing us all? You can't claim one element is more important than any of the others."

Zhao sat back. Any trace of smile or forced warmth in his expression was gone. "If that's the way this is going to go," he sighed as he leaned over the table, pulled the boy up by his shirt and quickly pushed him away and pulled him back to head butt him.

He released him, and the boy crumpled onto the cushion. Admiral Zhao smoothed his hair back down, and noticed a smear of red on his fingertips. He licked his thumb and swept it across his forehead. Satisfied that blood was not gushing down his face, he stepped away from the table and stood in front of the window. He rocked on his feet, shaking out his arms before folding them behind his back and calling for Private Tatsuo.

"Take him back to the dungeon cell from earlier and have one of the ships prepared. We leave for the Fire Nation at dawn," he ordered and kicked at the low table. "And send in a servant to clean this up."

* * *

Katara, Sokka and Toph picked through the forest, looking for signs of Aang. They had agreed not to call out his name in case anyone was combing the woods for them. Katara shivered and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. She glared at the back of Sokka's parka with narrowed eyes, wondering if he would let her borrow it if he felt enough pity for her.

Toph knelt a few meters from her, feeling the ground. She huffed in frustration as she stood, shaking her head. Katara walked over to her. "Still nothing?"

Toph clenched her jaw. "I can't tell if anything is out of place or not."

Katara looked to the west, where the sun was sinking. "Well, we've tracked him this far. Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow," she said, fighting her anxiety.

"Hey, I think I've got something," Sokka called from downhill.

Toph stomped her foot and a hunk of the ground she and Katara stood on dislodged and slid downhill. Toph picked up Katara's hand and dropped it on her shoulder.

"Help me steer away from any tree branches," Toph said.

Katara's heart was in her throat, and more twigs and leaves stuck in her hair when they screeched to a halt near Sokka.

He held up a piece of wood with orange paper attached to it. "Does this look airbendery to you?"

Toph snorted. "Yeah, _looks_ super airbendery, genius."

His mouth and eyes flattened as he tilted his head toward his sister.

"Um, Toph, I think he was talking to me," she said as she stepped forward and took the wood and paper from Sokka. Toph muttered under her breathe about Sokka forgetting she was blind. Katara flipped over the piece of wood, taking in the splintered end and fan-like paper. "He used to have a glider," she said, tapping the paper with a finger. "But he had to leave it behind in Pohuai."

Sokka had crouched and placed his hand in some tracks in the soil. "Something big got him," he said as he stood, brushing his hand on his parka. "My bet is Platypus Bear."

Toph punched his upper arm. "You can't just blame everything on platypus bears," she incredulously.

"What? They are vicious animals," he rubbed his arm and stepped away from the small earthbender.

Katara rolled her eyes and toyed with the glider in her hands once more. "I'm with Toph – when was the last time you saw a wild Platypus Bear?"

"You don't know everything I've done since the last time I saw you, sister," he said, his voice getting higher.

Toph snorted. "He practically cried when we saw a traveling circus with one."

Katara smirked at her brother. "I didn't realize you were such an animal lover these days," she said. "But I doubt a platypus bear would have carried part of Aang's glider from Pohuai to attack him here."

Sokka's shoulders slumped and he shrugged. "Okay, you got me on that. Sun's going down, though. What do you want to do?"

Katara looked up at him and grinned. "Easy. Let's go save the Avatar, big brother."


	14. Chapter 14

This chapter was such a pain to write – it seriously took me eight months to figure out the direction I wanted (with life interrupting) and another two to get it right. But it's here, and a little longer than my normal update! I recommend skimming back over the past two chapters before diving into this one.

* * *

A break in the clouds reveled a small patch of starry sky. Zuko held Appa's reins in one hand and ran his other through his hair, hoping they were still on course. He couldn't see any constellations, but he peered to his right and could make out the ridgeline of the mountains. He exhaled, and the wolf next to him cuddled closer into his side.

He put his hand on her shoulder and settled back on Appa's head. The wind whipped his hair around and made his eyes tear, but a flicker of anticipation that he couldn't ignore burned within.

Thoughts crowded his mind - of rescuing Aang and the vague, blurry post-rescue plan in place. Going back to Koh, and danger that entailed. Was Koh even that trustworthy? He seemed to know a lot about the physical world, and his blue demon mask stirred some subconscious memory. Zuko couldn't help but remember the mask without feeling like he had caught a glimpse of a mirror of a different life. He worried about the threat of showing emotion and having his face stolen.

The threat of _Katara_ showing emotion and having her face stolen was even greater. Katara was the most expressive person he knew, and the thought of her losing that ability pulled at his heart.

He tried to think about the after-after – what it would be like to have more than a few kisses at a time. They had two days before the Solstice – only one more full day as a hawk, and then one morning before he and Katara needed to get back to Koh with Aang. He imagined the conversations they could have, what her face would look like by starlight. He thought about the new constellations he had made up, and couldn't wait for her to squint and tell him that his Turtleduck looked more like a Boarcupine. He would pretend to be huffy and insulted until she apologized and kissed him to make him feel better.

As long as she could hide her emotions long enough to keep her face.

He refocused on the goal that seemed less dangerous, and far more likely to succeed: finding and possibly rescuing Aang.

Pohuai had been an important Fire Nation fortress for decades. Aang's first escape from Zhao had been a fluke, and everybody knew they wouldn't be so lucky a second time.

_If Zhao is even the one who found Aang,_ the annoying voice of pessimism snarked at him.

As the clouds covered his bearings once again, he kept his eye on the flatness of the ocean. A faint yellow line to their north caught his attention. He leaned forward and urged Appa toward it. It winked and wavered, and his stomach felt full of rocks as he realized it was a river, lit by hundreds of lanterns.

He didn't need to look at the map to know that the barrage of ships was on the Rive Pohuai. Zuko climbed over the saddle to wake Sokka and Toph. The wolf yelped at the sudden lack of warmth.

It looked like they wouldn't need to fly all the way to Pohuai after all.

* * *

Katara pressed her forearms heavily into the wood grain of the railing along the pier and tore at the stale roll she had picked up for breakfast, feeding bits to the hawk preening on her shoulder. The river skiffs would arrive in the harbor town at any moment to begin transferring cargo and men to the contingent of three ships waiting, and they still didn't have a plan.

She half-listened as Toph described finding some officers, getting them drunk, letting them think there was going to be more to their meeting, and then turning on them and getting the information they needed, as well as a way to sneak on to the ship. Katara pulled her hood up to block the crisp wind.

"Toph, I'm not letting you do that so I can get a set of armor," Sokka admonished behind her.

Katara gritted her teeth and felt the prick of a splinter through her sleeve. They had a plan – it just sucked.

"Come on Snoozles, it's not like any guy whose armor you could fit into could threaten _me_," Toph chortled. "I won't even have to do anything. Heck, I'll even pretend like I can _see _to enjoy the show, if that would help shelter your precious sensibilities."

Katara knew she was just putting off the inevitable. The ships would leave port in a few hours, and after that, they would have no chance for even this desperate grasp to work. And her faint plan – to just ambush the ship that held Aang – seemed more far-fetched when _she_ couldn't plan on stowing aboard and turning if they took too long.

She traced the edges of the rotting wood with her middle finger and fed the hawk the last bit of roll. Zuko squawked, whether in annoyance or contentment she couldn't tell. As Sokka lectured Toph about risky behaviors and not blowing their cover, Katara looked at the bird on her shoulder and an idea scratched at the back of her mind.

If they noticed her leave, she didn't hear. It wouldn't be too uncommon for a colonist to receive draft papers, after all. She dropped by a posting board, consciously avoiding touching her hood while looking at a _very _rough sketch of her and Zuko. They had Zuko's likeness spot-on - after all, the artist had a trove of official portraits of the prince and Ozai at his age to work off. She tilted her head when she looked at the woman who was supposed to represent her. It seemed they just couldn't get her nose right, and the effect annoyed her after her years in the Fire Nation.

Above the wanted posters she found the draft list. She chose a name at random, hoping that he was close to average proportions.

They were still bickering when she returned with the bundles.

She cleared her throat. They stopped and slowly turned to her.

"What's in the packages, sis?"

Katara raised an eyebrow. "You forget that I've lived around the Fire Nation for half my life. I just asked if I could have some armor to surprise my brother on his birthday, now that he's old enough to join the Navy."

They found a quiet alley and hid from the street behind a large pile of garbage that smelled long past its pick-up date. She helped Sokka put the armor on, retying the plates correctly and hoping he wouldn't make a mess of it when he inevitably removed it. Sokka ran down what they had pieced together as their plan – if he couldn't figure out which ship held Aang, he should stick with Zhao, and was there anything Katara remembered about Navy protocol, anything at all?

"The only thing I'm worried about," she said as she licked her thumb and rubbed at a scuff on his shoulder plate, "is your blue eyes. You do not look fire nation at all."

Sokka buckled his belt and Zuko landed on Sokka's shoulder. "I'll try to stay on the deck, so I have a better excuse to keep my helmet on. And I can always hide out with your boyfriend here with the rest of the messenger hawks."

Toph picked at her fingernails, propping one leg up on the wall. "This plan sounds more and more desperate the more we talk about it." She stopped her picking and asked in a smaller voice, "If you stay on deck, how are you going to find Aang?"

The wind shifted and they temporarily had a reprieve from the stench. Katara's jaw pulsed as she snapped her mouth shut. Shouts, clangs and gull cries filtered through the air. She couldn't meet Sokka's eye as she tried to think of a better plan.

Sokka ducked his head and sighed. "I guess desperation is where we're at. He turned to Katara. "How do I look?"

She stepped back and forced herself to look him in the eye and smile. "I think you'll pass."

* * *

The western shore of the Earth Kingdom slipped from view within an hour of the fleet's launch. Tatsuo stood at the stern, watching the waves chop in white crests. The sky hung heavily over, and the wind snapped at his face through the crack between his helmet and faceplate. The Avatar – Aang – was somewhere below deck, several levels down, chained within an iron vault. The kid had been drugged into compliance for transport, and Tatsuo had seen no recognition when he had taken his helmet off during his guard shift the night before.

He shuffled his feet. As with any troop movement, rumors multiplied and morphed rapidly. The most persistent, unchanging one implied the airbender would meet an untimely demise in a Fire Nation prison once ships were dispatched to the South Pole to begin a search for a new Avatar.

He wasn't as sure about the glory of the Fire Nation as he had been before. The banished prince had definitely not lost his honor – he treated his companions with respect.

Private Tatsuo wasn't even sure what they were fighting this war for any more; three different benders traveled and lived together in harmony. The Fire Nation assassinated allies that might not prove useful in the future. They would kill a young man whose only provable crime was being of a different race and crash-landing in the wrong courtyard during a storm.

The deck grew colder as a fog thickened around the ship. The other two ships, only slightly behind the flagship, grew more faint as they slowed to account for the poor visibility. Tatsuo sighed; his free time was almost up and he was due to man the messenger hawk station for the next six hours.

The solitude would be welcome; he could use the time alone to get over his funk regarding the boy that could be the Avatar. He trudged toward the room at the base of the tower.

He had barely relieved the other private and propped himself up against the wall when another firebending private entered with a bird. They nodded at each other, and Tatsuo would have thought nothing more of the whole situation.

And then the hawk cried.

Tatsuo's eyebrows flew up as he took in the familiar hawk. It wasn't wearing the proper military symbols, and the feather pattern around its – his – eye was unmistakable. He studied the soldier more closely, who shuffled from foot to foot nervously.

"Is that hawk just coming in, or are you sending a message?" Tatsuo tried to keep his voice casual. "I have a message to send home, if that's where you're sending it."

"Erm no," came the muffled reply. Tatsuo listened for an accent. "Well, I mean I'm sending one, but you can't attach a message. It's not going to the Fire Nation. To home, I mean."

The accent was too rolling, a little too slow. It wasn't the crisp clipped speech Tatsuo was used to hearing from other Fire Nationals. Tatsuo thought about the hawk and the company he last saw him in, and the rumors of the nice airbender not being long for the world.

"I know this hawk," Tatsuo ventured. "He is very loyal, and I believe he will take your message exactly where it needs to go."

The soldier tensed up. Tatsuo thought he could hear him hold his breath.

"I'm guessing that this hawk will mostly be flying up and back east?" Tatsuo did not know who this man was, but he hoped that he was dropping enough hints.

The avian Prince Zuko was calm, and stared at Tatsuo. The other soldier exhaled audibly and pushed his faceplate up. Tatsuo took in his bright blue eyes and dark complexion.

"You must be acquainted with Lady Katara," Tatsuo lowered his voice, even with the cover noise of squawking birds.

The man's eyes widened and he nodded slowly. "You must be the Private from the forest. I'm not expecting any help, but the fact that you haven't already called for backup is making me hopeful –"

"Aang is in the hold," Tatsuo interrupted. "I can get you there, but I don't know how you can get him out."

"I've got backup coming. I just need some sort of distraction to help them out."

Tatsuo thought for a moment. "If there's one stowaway to free the Airbender, there are bound to be others."

The Water Tribesman's eyebrows lifted in understanding. "And if the ship is focused on finding _the others_…" he speculated. "Private Tatsuo, I think you need to turn me into Admiral Zhao."

* * *

Aang's head felt like it was full of Appa's spring shed coat. His tongue took up too much space in his mouth, and he desperately needed water. He thought he might be a scarecrow like the ones the monks erected to protect the gardens at this time of year. No, the scarecrows were up when he left in late summer. When was it now?

There was a shuffle outside his door, and he curled in a ball, covering his ears, when it scraped open. Chains attached to his hands weighed down his arms and shoulders. Why was he so heavy? He needed air and lightness and clouds and Appa.

The shuffling and scraping continued and tears leaked through his eyes from how tightly they were shut. Men talked and threatened and Aang blocked it out and wished her were in the clouds, floating above it all.

Finally it was over. The footsteps clanged away from him, and the scraping of metal on metal, flaking away rust, was over. He still couldn't open his eyes, and he tried to swallow.

"Aang," a voice hissed at him. He ignored it. He was not going mad.

"Aang," it came more persistently. Aang turned his head and cracked his left eye open. Now he was a scarecrow and Sokka was in a cell next to his. Great.

"Damn it, Tatsuo said you were drugged, but I didn't realize you would still be this bad." Sokka's arms looped through the bars and he leaned on them.

Aang tried to follow. "Tatsuo is a weird name."

Sokka huffed and said something else, but Aang thought about Appa. He missed his bison. He also missed his glider, but that was broken and gone because of that bounty hunter and he wondered if Nyla ever got a nice steak.

Something was scratching and clicking and his wrists were light again. Was this what it was like to be a bird and have hollow bones? Was marrow just a type of chain tethering him to the Earth?

Sokka cursed again, and Aang giggled. Monks weren't supposed to curse, but Monk Gyatso once said it should be acceptable if the situation called for it. When your bones were your chains, Aang thought the situation would call for it. His mouth formed a soundless word. Did that count as cursing? Or did he need to give it breath to give it life?

Sokka put Aang's arm over his shoulder and hauled him up, moving him toward the metal door.

"Sokka, how long have you been here?" Aang asked, even though he didn't know where they were.

Before he got an answer, the room listed to the left and Aang couldn't even stumble before he landed on his face.

"Come on buddy," Sokka hauled him up again. "That's our ride, and we have a limited window to catch it."

* * *

The hawk landed on Katara's forearm and she untied the red ribbon attaching the parchment. Toph waited behind her, arms folded over the lip of the saddle. Katara unrolled the paper and read the message twice, amazed at their luck. Toph cleared her throat expectantly.

"We need to go set up a diversion while Sokka breaks Aang out," Katara pecked a kiss on the left side of the hawk's face they swooped through the clouds toward the leading ship.

The deck of the flagship was unusually quiet when they landed on the portside, Appa's weight briefly tilting the ship. Katara and Toph jumped off and began incapacitating the men onboard. Bells clanged and armored feet ran upstairs toward the deck.

Salt water washed over the sides of the ship, Katara drawing more to have close by to create discs, freeze firebenders up to their waists, and shield Toph from arrows and shots of flame while she somehow made the deck ripple and wave. She drew soldiers away from the door and washed them overboard or froze them to their waists in ice.

The hawk cried above, and she wished Zuko would just stay on Appa's saddle, or somewhere away from the fray of the battle. She lost her patience and pulled more water onboard – _finally_ – barely noticing the three soldiers washed over the starboard gunwale. Scanning the deck, an archer was training his arrow somewhere overhead. Her heart in her throat, she threw an ice pick at him, impaling him just after he loosened his arrow. The hawk cried again, but before she could find him in the sky, a wall of flame cut around her and drew her mind back to the deck.[WB1]

_Please, Tui and La, _she thought as the flames turned to steam. _He wasn't hit. Please._

"Well, what a pleasant surprise," Zhao crowed. "I'm sure the Fire Lord will be interested to find you again, little water witch."

Katara inhaled and pulled more water up around her arms. She felt something snapping inside of her, like she was losing control. "I'm sure he'll be more interested in your weird obsession with an Airbending kid."

He rocked back on his heels and sneered. "And I'm to assume you're here to rescue him? And that other Water Tribe fellow too?"

Katara bared her teeth and tightened her fists for the inevitable fight. _Sokka, what did you do? _she wondered.

Her rage made her pull on the water stronger. "You've got my evil plan figured out, so there's no need for me to go into more detail."

Zhao opened his mouth, as though he thought she would still allow him the last word. Katara pulled her arm up, whipping a tentacle-like extension across his jaw and felt a thrill of joy as the force flung his head to the side.

With his eyes squinted shut, he looked more like an academy bully than a decorated military man. He fell to his knee, and she hit him in the chin with an uppercut of a water whip. She drew closer, and continued to thrash him.

A warning went off in the back of her mind a split second too late when he brought himself up onto his arms and kicked his legs under him. She brought up a wave shield late, and her sleeve caught fire. _Heal it later, _she thought, clenching her teeth against the sting._ Figure out a way to end this and free Sokka._

He pushed his advantage, on his feet again. She backed away, depending too much on defense. After ducking a flaming punch, she realized her heel was up against the gunwale. Zhao pulled back to land another kick at her, and she tossed herself into the churning grey sea below.

* * *

Tatsuo ran back down the hall and helped Sokka haul Aang up the narrow stairs to the deck. "I think the double diversion worked – we just need to get you to the air bison," he said breathlessly.

Sokka nodded. Tatsuo opened the door. "I'll get you this far, but I need to maintain plausible deniability."

He pushed them through the door, and they burst onto a deck broiling with activity. Sokka wasn't sure where to look first, but he saw Appa and immediately started toward him.

Fire Nation soldiers were frozen up to their waists around him, like half-ice sculptures. He nearly tripped when he realized that at least half of the men were not frozen in ice, but wrapped in metal. He carefully picked his way across the deck, Aang moaning onto his shoulder.

A small squad of spearmen noticed them and called for reinforcement. Sokka steadily limped onward. A sheet of decking material snaked its way around the squad, pinning the six men together, and Sokka gaped at a grinning Toph.

"Toph," he exclaimed. "That is amazing! Metal bending?"

She shrugged, but he noticed a faint blush dusted across her cheeks. She opened her mouth to retort, but a look of horror passed over her face and she ran closer to Appa.

"Where is Katara? She's been skating around the deck so it's been hard for me to track her, but I don't feel her anywhere."

Sokka shook his head. "I don't know. Help me get Aang to Appa."

Toph ran past them. "Can't, I just found Zuko."

Sokka waved her off and stumbled toward the air bison. Appa bellowed at some soldiers who stood well outside the range of his tail. Sokka briefly wondered how many men had been dumped into the sea.

"Appa!" Aang cried happily. "I don't have lychee nuts for you."

Sokka boosted Aang in the saddle in a heap of loose limbs and clamored up behind him, hunting through his packs. Sokka found his boomerang and swung around to wield it against any soldiers nearby.

"Toph," he yelled, wondering where she had run off. He spotted her through the smoke, cradling a hawk that had most definitely been struck by an arrow. Sokka felt his heart go numb. Toph skated along the deck, metal plates flapping behind her and throwing her few pursuers off balance. With everyone back at Appa or well on their way, he scanned the deck for Katara.

She burst from the sea in a maelstrom of water, mist and small chunks of ice flying around her. Her hair was loose from her braid and floated around her. She looked like a fierce warrior princess out of the old Southern stories.

Flames shot up at her from the deck, and she drowned them with the swirling vortex around her. He didn't want to look away, but large movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention.

The battle had lasted perhaps five minutes, and the other two ships began drawing closer as they realized the flagship was under attack. Soldiers gawked at the gunwale of the ship coming up on their portside. A cry went up, and Sokka realized they were readying catapults.

"Katara," Sokka bellowed and she jerked her head up at him, eyes wide and mouth slack. "We need to get out of here before they arm their catapults."

She mouthed the word "catapults" back at him, and he watched her face morph from open-mouthed shock to grim determination. She smacked the firebender's fists away one more time and pinned his arms to his side with slabs of ice.

The Firebender started shouting orders, and she brought her arms around him, slapping an ice gag on him with one hand and forming a large icicle with the other, which she held to his carotid artery.

Using his body as a shield, she sidestepped to Appa. She was now shouting orders at the remaining crew, and a disheveled officer came to the deck to listen.

"Fire Lord Ozai would be most displeased to find that his own men killed an Admiral," she was saying. "Any _hint_ of you following us, or attacking our retreat and he'll have a long drop into a very cold ocean."

She and the Admiral – Sokka was impressed – slid the rest of the way to Appa and she hauled him up with an assist from Toph.

As soon as she landed in the saddle, Sokka cried "yip-yip," and they launched into the late afternoon sky.

* * *

Next chapter should be out in two weeks (I'm going to shoot for Friday updates), and the framework for the rest of this story is complete. I was so excited to get this posted, especially since today is my birthday. Please leave me a comment if you enjoy this – nothing motivates this writer like a quick note!


	15. Chapter 15

O.M.G. Becky, look at this early update. Thanks for all of the love here and on tumblr – you guys are great!

* * *

Katara's mind had gone wild after she jumped into the sea, and she managed to rein herself back in around the time she saw Sokka and Aang on Appa's saddle. As Appa took off, she tried to focus on one thing at a time. Somehow their harebrained scheme actually worked. Aang and Sokka were safe. Sure they now had to deal with a psychotic Fire Nation Admiral as a hostage, but at least that wouldn't be hard hundreds of feet in the air. The next big thing was to check on Zuko and break the curse.

The icicle in her hand, which had been melting from Zhao's body heat, suddenly refroze as her mind stopped whirring. Zuko. "Toph," she croaked, frantically looking around the saddle.

The earthbender motioned to a bundle of blankets in her lap.. Katara refroze Zhao's restraints. "Can you –" she motioned to Zhao feebly. Toph nodded and carefully set the bundle down before crawling around the saddle to Zhao. She braided the metal plating on his arms together, trapping his arms in new metal binds. The ice that Katara had clamped over his mouth was quickly melting, and he made strange frantic noises. Toph felt around the saddle and found some cloth that felt like clean bandages and gagged him. She then turned to the delirious airbender who was talking to Sokka's bag about flying with Guru Laghima.

Katara didn't notice any of this as she moved the blankets aside, not quite sure how she got to his side so quickly. The hawk – Zuko – had an arrow through his left wing. He still breathed shallowly. Katara drew a shaky breath and began assessing what she could do.

The arrow had pierced the bone, and one of his legs was mangled from his uncontrolled fall. She squinted her eyes to stop the tears and exhaled. Zuko needed her to work on this before the sun set to avoid the worst of the pain. She could do this. She was exhausted, but Zuko needed her now.

She had less than an hour before the sun set; someone else needed to know what to do when he turned human. Human. They needed to find a place to go for the eclipse. This was impossible. Her boyfriend had been shot with an arrow, and was currently a bird. She could heal humans, but she knew close to nothing about birds. What if she messed up and it messed him up in human form?

She felt tears building and squeezed her eyes shut, holding the palms of her hands up to her forehead. With her eyes shut, she could focus on the feel of the wind whipping at her hair and face. She inhaled slowly and exhaled. When she opened her eyes everything was sharper, her mind clearer.

She had studied the map before ambushing the ship and had a vague idea of where to go. "Sokka," she yelled over the wind. He turned his head to hear her better. "Go South." He nodded and readjusted their course. "Toph," she called over her shoulder. The other girl was pouring water in Aang's mouth and capped the skin, crawling over next to Katara.

Katara sliced the arrow shaft as close to the puncture hole as possible to remove it with the least damage. "Can you get me more bandages?"

Toph wordlessly handed Katara supplies as she requested them, uncapping and recapping water skins and shushing Aang when he became giggly.

By the time Sokka crawled over the lip of the saddle to get more concise directions, she had the wing cleaned and bandaged. There was nothing she could do for his foot; she didn't know anything about healing hollow bones.

Sokka unfurled the map in the dimming light, tracing south of the fleet's position. He shifted suddenly next to Katara.

"Are we headed to the Fire Nation?" he asked.

Katara nodded, forcing herself to look up from Zuko and pay attention to her brother. They had half a day to travel.

"Taku is too far away. Avatar Roku lived and died on Crescent Island," she stated, hoping he would understand all of her logic behind the choice without needing the details.

Sokka glanced to the setting sun on his right. "I'll have a better idea of how long it will take us to get there when I have some constellations to guide off."

Toph moved back over by Aang when he began speaking to Sokka's bag as if it were a flying lemur. "No, Momo, we don't want to eat the lychee nut pastries. They only get us in trouble."

"Okay Twinkletoes, I need you to drink this water," she said as she tipped it in his mouth.

"You're the flying boar girl!" Aang exclaimed. "You laugh too much."

Toph's brow furrowed as she recapped the water skin and turned away.

The sun set, and Katara peppered Zuko's furrowed brow and clenched jaw with as many kisses as she could before it slipped below the horizon for the night.

* * *

They landed on a cliff near the lip of the volcano that fed the island around midnight. Toph made some earthen steps up to the saddle and Sokka helped Zuko down. Aang had slept most of the flight to Crescent Island, and had a horrible headache but his mind finally felt clear.

He and Toph stood over the wild-eyed Admiral. Toph was all for dropping him off at the next island over, but Aang was afraid that he would be able to get reinforcements and somehow spoil the eclipse the next day. Toph threw up her hands and stomped down the steps to set up a wind shelter instead.

Aang had a strong desire to ignore his nonviolent beliefs and deliver a swift kick to Zhao's kidneys. Instead he knelt and tried to haul the heavier man up to his feet. Sokka heard the struggle and hopped up to help. They got him over the lip of the saddle without any issues, but their captive began thrashing back and forth as soon as he was on the steps. Aang lost his hold on Zhao and watched as the Admiral tumbled down the steps. Toph huffed and stomped a thick layer of earth over him, effectively trapping him in one spot for the night.

"Only for you, Twinkletoes," she said before closing herself in an earthen tent.

* * *

Zuko watched the sun break the horizon with a sense of calm anticipation. The wolf transformed, and he tugged Katara toward him with his good arm. "Last time you do that," he whispered on her lips.

"And the last time I have to let you go," she replied.

The rest of the group was stretching and getting ready for the day when she returned to camp. Sokka and Toph agreed to stay with Appa and Zhao while Aang, Katara and Zuko trekked to the temple.

Katara eyed Zhao in his restraints. Toph had turned him so that his shoulders up stuck out of the ground. Somebody, Katara guessed it was Sokka based on the mess, had tried to feed Zhao the same rice porridge the rest of them ate for breakfast. Zhao had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair stuck up wildly. Katara found she rather enjoyed watching the Admiral squirm.

Aang packed a small bag with food and hopped up. His face was badly bruised from the mistreatment in the Fire Nation prison, and Katara offered to heal him before they set out. He asked her to reduce the swelling, but to leave the rest of the bruises.

"I don't know, maybe Koh will be less interested in my face if it's multicolored," Aang joked when she questioned him.

Katara and Aang picked their way down the black cliff, quietly debating what their strategy should be – should they try to sneak in a window, or just go to the front door and pretend like they were enthusiastic Avatar-hunters? They rounded a blind corner along the mountain, and were in view of Roku's temple.

They also found themselves face-to-face with a fire sage. He wore the red robes under a heavy red cloak, but his head was bare. His dark hairline was receding, and his goatee had a few hairs that were beginning to grey.

All three froze. Zuko shifted nervously on Katara's shoulder, hopping awkwardly on his injured leg. Aang could hear his blood pumping.

The Sage cocked an eyebrow at them. "I didn't know we had any pilgrims on the island," he said in a bored tone.

"Um, yes," Katara started. "We were just checking out the upper parts of the cliff. You know, trying to find out what Avatar Roku must have felt when he went for walks when he lived here."

The Fire Sage's face fell. "Avatar hunters?" he asked dully. Katara elbowed Aang in the ribs and they both nodded.

Aang wasn't quite sure what was going on, so he let her take the lead.

"Wouldn't just be amazing if we were the ones to find the Avatar and bring him to Fire Lord Ozai?" she gushed. "My cousin Kuzon here has a biggest crush on Kyoshi. It's so cute."

"Hey, that's cool. Do whatever, just don't take anything with you," the sage said as he tried to inch past them on the narrow path.

"We actually don't know how to get into the temple," Katara blocked his way. "I know you must be really busy. But can you show us around?"

He looked more annoyed than anything. "It's back that way."

"Please, any information would be nice," Katara pressed on, intent on keeping him from walking up to the top of the cliffs to find an air bison and hostage Fire Nation Admiral.

Aang picked up on her panic. "Yeah, did Avatar Roku do any earthbending in this area?" He looked at Katara and deadpanned. "You know, since I'm so into Earthbenders."

The Fire Sage rolled his eyes and relented. "Follow me," he groused. He turned around and took off down the hill, muttering to himself about just lasting out on this god-forsaken rock until he could collect a pension.

"Ok, bureaucratic indifference was not something I expected to help us here," Katara said in a low voice to Aang.

Aang lifted his eyebrows and nodded in agreement.

The Fire Sage, who after much cajoling, admitted his name was Shyu, warmed up to them when they started asking about the island's geology. Apparently Fire Sage Shyu, while wishing he were stationed in a Fire Temple with more prestige or potential for advancement, was obsessed with volcanos. He almost became animated when he told Katara and Aang about a small lava flow that had been leaking out of the earth since Roku's time.

"Apparently he was able to harness both fire and earth in order to lava-bend," he explained. "Very fascinating. Makes one wonder if the child of an earthbender and a firebender might be able to duplicate it."

Talk grew sparse as they climbed the stairs leading to the five-tiered pagoda. Aang huffed, remembering the climb to the Abbey months before.

"What about today?" Katara asked, filling the void with chatter. "Since it's the Winter Solstice, is anything special supposed to happen today?"'

Shyu, more cheerful after talking about his passion with some fresh blood, indulged them. He led them through the halls of the temple, nodding formally at the other Sages they passed. "You know, it's rumored that Avatar Roku learned to use the Avatar state here at Winter Solstice when he was a young man."

They climbed a few sets of stairs, and found themselves in a large sanctuary. Shyu motioned toward a circular window above them. "He destroyed the original temple in his efforts, but reconstructed it later. He had this window installed so that when the sun is at its lowest peak, it would shine through, fitting perfectly."

He motioned toward a large ruby set in the wall above a statue of a tall, serious man. "When the light hits just right, the sun is magnified, and this room feels like summer."

Katara bowed to him, nervously wishing she could see the sky. "Thank you. Is there any way we can meditate in here for a few hours to welcome the longer days to come?"

Shyu waved his hand at her. "Of course," he said. "And Kuzon, if you're interested in that lava flow, I'll be hiking to the far side of the island later today."

Aang nodded his head. "Thank you for all of the information, Fire Sage Shyu. We appreciate it."

When he was gone, they both sighed.

"Aang, how much time do you think we have?" Katara asked as she took Zuko off her shoulder and gently placed him on the floor.

Aang had gone to the door, looking both ways down the hall before shutting the large wooden doors. "I don't know, but it took Shyu long enough to show us here. I've never talked to someone that into rocks _and_ fire."

The sky grew a tinge darker, as if something had slid in front of the sun. Katara turned, and Zuko sat on the floor beside her. She flung herself at his chest before remembering his injuries.

"I'm so sorry," she said, pulling back suddenly and inspecting his bandaged arm. "We don't have time –" She looked up. They were no longer in Roku's temple, but a swamp.

"I guess we don't have to worry about falling into a meditative state," Zuko winced as she helped him stand on one leg.

His face was paler than usual, and he grunted, but he smiled at her. She pulled his good arm around her shoulder for support.

Katara stared at the swamp in amazement, watching the small flames dance back and forth, the small white creatures that bobbled their heads at them with a clattering noise. She bit her lower lip. "So, do you need help walking?" She asked Zuko as they turned around.

He stopped wobbling. "No need," his face was schooled in one flat line. "We're here."

Aang bounded to her other side.

There was no go-team moment, no inspiration speech, no smiles. Grim nods, smooth faces, and even breathing were shared.

They took one step and the trees and swamp shuddered around them, twisting in a meld of brown and green and grey and reassembling into the base of a tree. They stood in the mouth of a cave. Katara tried to fight her strong desire to be anywhere but this cave, but Zuko moved his arm from her shoulder to around her waist, bringing her close.

_Don't smile,_ she reprimanded herself, savoring the thrill of his warm hand on her side.

The three of them stepped in the cave, and heard a clicking and slithering noise. Koh crept into the light, wearing his white kabuki face.

Katara schooled her features against the revulsion rising in her throat. Koh stared her in the face for a long beat before turning to Zuko.

He laughed softly, a sharp, rude sound. "This is just rich, isn't it, old friend?"

His face blinked into a blue mask with fangs and red eyes. Katara found it vaguely familiar.

"This is just too sweet," Koh blinked back to the white kabuki mask. He gasped and clicked his front legs together. "Oh and you even have the thread to prove it."

Katara looked down and realized there was a red thread tied to her left ring finger. The other end connected to Zuko's finger. She swallowed to keep the emotions from her face and looked up into the face of another Water Tribe woman.

"Koh," she stated flatly. "Will you release us from this curse?"

Koh slithered around the two of them, Katara holding Zuko's hand tighter. "I suppose I've put you through the wringer enough for this lifetime. Perhaps the three of us will meet again in the next. Always a pleasure, you two."

Koh turned his attention to Aang. "Now Avatar, so pleased to see _you_ again. I am afraid, however that I need to speak to an even older friend."

"Koh, what are you talking about?" Aang asked with no inflection to his voice.

"Well I would like to collect our dear friend Admiral Zhao to fulfill that deal we had. And if we leave him where he is, I fear he will eventually do harm to one of our dear buddies still in the physical world."

Koh continued to loop around Aang. His mind raced; Aang had no idea what Koh was talking about. "Koh, I don't know what you mean."

Koh stopped, and his face was an old man with a drooping mustache. "No, of course not, young Avatar," his voice was almost musical, and then it turned sing-songy. "Raava, Raava, come out to play."

* * *

The transition back into the physical world _hurt_. He wasn't sure what exactly Koh had done, but instead of feeling the Avatar spirit within him, he felt like _he_ was inside of the Avatar. _Raava, how did I not realize?_ He wondered weakly. His physical body was taken up within this larger spiritual body, and he couldn't tell if he was a puppet or a puppet master.

_Aang, stop fighting me,_ a woman's voice reverberated through his skull. The effect was painful. _We are one and the same; work with me._

He forced himself to relax and opened his eyes. He felt himself in his small body, glowing within a larger spiritual being. He felt as though he were seeing with Raava's ten-thousand eyes as well as his own. _Yes, Aang, accept these senses,_ Raava's voice echoed within his head. He suddenly felt clearer, and more comfortable when he stopped trying to understand everything he saw.

Katara and Zuko huddled in the sanctuary. The Fire Sages swept the courtyard and relighting incense. Shyu hiked up the backside of the island. Hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers wondered where to go to find their commanding officer.

Appa slept without his saddle on. Toph and Sokka played dice on the bluff. Zhao trapped in his earthen prison.

Raava reared up at him. This man, who interfered with the spirits and the would-be Moonslayer. Toph yelled something at Sokka, who shielded his eyes with his hand.

_Raava, they're my friends_, Aang thought at the spirit.

_I know, young one. We just need the Moonslayer._

Aang didn't know what was going on with the Moonslayer talk, but figured he wouldn't want to be Zhao right then. Raava swept over him, releasing him from the earth and taking him back to the Spirit World. She left Aang behind, and he collapsed in an exhausted heap next to Toph.

* * *

Katara held onto Zuko as a wind whipped around them in the sanctuary. _Aang is with the others_ a voice boomed and whispered at them. She thought she heard Zhao yelling, but when they opened their eyes, they were alone.

She was alone with Zuko, and they were both human. She lunged at him, and knocked him to the floor. She couldn't tell if they were laughing or crying, and then he wiped tears off her face and she realized she was both.

She smothered him in kisses, and he held her with his right arm. She realized his left arm was still bandaged, and she was probably crushing it, and she sat up on him, straddling his midsection. She sniffed her nosed and wiped at her face.

"Zuko, I'm so sorry," she started. "I forgot about your arm and leg."

He sat up, holding her waist. "Katara," he whispered, kissing the tear tracks on her face. "Let's get out of here."

She helped him stand up and together they limped out of the Fire Temple and into the bright sunlight.

* * *

Yep, going to keep FanFiction Friday updates a thing. Also, I feel only slightly bad about making Shyu (that super helpful sage in the Winter Solstice episode) an apathetic government employee here. Thought it would fit with this world a little better.

See you next week!


	16. Chapter 16

Well, my original plan was to just cut to the epilogue, but figured that would not be fun for anybody. Shout out to my head cold; without it, I would be at work and this chapter would not be finished now.

Warning: this chapter contains sexual content.

* * *

Katara woke up as Appa began his descent. Her face was buried in Zuko's chest, both arms – fully healed – draped around her. She felt deliciously warm and drowsy and that wonderful sense of confusion that only happens when one skirts the border of consciousness. Small snow flurries swirled around them as if defying gravity. She wiped a little drool off her chin, wondering if she had always been such a sloppy sleeper.

A warm puff of air hit her ear, and she tilted her chin up to grin at him. Her stomach fluttered as his arm tightened around her and he ducked his head to kiss her forehead.

"Sleep well?" Zuko asked her quietly. "You passed out pretty solidly after that healing session."

His voice rumbled through his chest and made her chin tingle. Her toes curled and she self-consciously looked around the saddle. Toph and Sokka sat on the other side, arms crossed over the edge of the saddle, quiet murmurings of their own conversation drifting over to Katara with their backs turned.

She stretched her legs out and arched her back slightly, pressing her chest into his slightly. "Did you sleep at all? You need more rest than I do with that leg." Her brow furrowed slightly as she inspected his face.

He almost looked… relaxed. His smile grew larger, and his breathe slowed down. He looked at her like he was trying to drink her in slowly. His eyes had new flecks of brown and gold in them that she couldn't remember from before, and the dimension added to the intensity of his gaze. Her face relaxed; she had to return that goofy smile. She felt light-headed with anticipation.

Zuko shook his head and tightened his arm around her. "I think I dozed off at one point, but the sun felt too good."

She sat up and shielded her eyes to study forest below them and try to figure out where they were. "Which way did we end up heading?"

Zuko grunted as he sat up as well. "Pretty much east. Apparently there's some haunted forest that Sokka and Toph ran into. Figured we could risk ghosts and spirits more easily than Fire Nation at this point."

Appa settled down in a clearing surrounded by bamboo. The five of them disembarked, Aang and Katara helping Zuko down. They were silent. The flakes still flurried about them, collecting on the ridges of the bamboo, the forest around them horizontal stripes of green and white in the dimming light.

Sokka broke the silence. "The three of us will find another campsite. You lovebirds can hang out here and we'll come get you tomorrow around noon."

Katara's face felt hot at the implication, and her pulse jumped. "Are you sure that's the best idea with the Spirits…?"

Sokka was already back on the saddle, passing Zuko and Katara's bundles to Aang. Toph stomped on the ground and erected a small stone shelter.

"The main spirit in this forest is a giant panda, so just don't cut down too much firewood and you're set," Sokka dismissed Katara's worries. He stood and looked down at Katara, his hands on his hips. "You two are just too cute. It's killing the rest of us."

Toph slapped Katara on the back, pointing her thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the shelter. "It's a little small, so you'll have to snuggle close," she smirked at Katara before hauling herself back up in the saddle by the side straps.

Aang pressed a whistle shaped like an airbison into Katara's hand. "Just in case something does happen. Appa will come pick you up."

Then their friends were gone, flying off to a different campsite, and she and Zuko were alone. She suddenly felt very shy and jittery.

It had been over a year since they had actually been together, and for the first time in months they were truly alone. She had changed in that time. She was no longer the girl who ran away to be with a boy and travel to be with his uncle. Zuko had probably changed too. He definitely looked more pale and gaunt than she remembered, and she hadn't seen her own reflection in months.

He leaned heavily on a bamboo staff one of the others must have found for him and cleared his throat. "So what do you want for dinner?"

Her stomach growled loudly, and she looked at the pack with disdain. "Anything but Earth Stew."

He smiled. "Maybe Sokka left us some seal jerky," he motioned toward their pack.

Katara snorted and tilted her head toward the rush of a river. "How about fish?"

Zuko had a fire roaring and some roots roasting by the time she returned with two fish. He was staring at where the sun would be, if they could see past the bamboo. The sky was a dusty gold, and the snow had slowed down. He didn't move when she stepped back into the clearing. She set the fish on a flat rock near the base of the fire, and snuck up behind him.

He jumped when she leaned down, put her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. "This is my favorite part of the day," she whispered in his ear. He brought his hands up to cover hers while she kneeled behind him, leaning against his back.

He exhaled and leaned back against her. "I'm still afraid of what might happen when it goes down," he said as he brought her hand up to press a kiss to the flesh below her thumb.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I slept today. I'm going to see the moon at night again and you're going to wake up at inhumane hours and we'll be together."

She felt him smile against her palm, and she ran her other hand through his hair, wrinkling her nose at how stiff it was from dirt. They sat together until the sky turned a dark navy and the only light was the fire reflecting on the snow.

They drew closer to the fire and finished preparing their food. Katara moved to sit next to Zuko before she wondered why she bothered with propriety. She grabbed a blanket and crawled over his legs, gently moving them out of the way so she could nestle against his chest. Zuko pulled her close and kissed her neck. She rearranged the blanket over their laps and picked up their food bowls.

He propped his bowl up on her knee, and she smirked as she swiped a piece of fish from his.

"You still insist on eating my food instead of yours?" he asked.

"Yours just looks better," she shrugged blithely.

He growled and picked a piece from her bowl. Their meal turned into a game of keep-away with the food and ended with them feeding each other morsels.

After they set their bowls aside, they lounged there just talking and intertwining their fingers. They talked about some of their human antics, some of the strange situations they had transformed into.

"My favorite is still last summer when I stood up and saw some Freedom Fighter trying to get fresh with you," he murmured in her ear.

She sat up with a laugh. "I was so close to freezing him to a tree, but watching that stupid piece of straw fall out of his mouth while he gaped at you was pretty sweet." She turned onto her side to nestle her shoulder against his chest and ran her hand over his torso.

Zuko's heart speed up under her ear. "I don't think I intimidated him nearly as much as you did as a wolf. You were extremely territorial."

She smiled and absent-mindedly rubbed at a stain set into his shirt. "It was his fault for not leaving me alone when I told him I wasn't interested. I never was clear on how that whole situation was resolved though."

Zuko coughed. "Do you want to turn in?" he asked abruptly. "Toph did make us a tent and it would be a shame if it went to waste." The implications of his words hit him and his face turned a light pink. "I didn't mean that – I mean I'd like that, but we don't have to, if you don't feel – "

All of Katara's flutters from earlier had solidified over the hours into a warm gooey feeling around her heart. She smiled and leaned up, kissing him deeply.

"Let's see just how cozy Toph made this tent first," she stood and stretched. She felt his gaze on the arch in her back and felt a few of the flutters return. _Stop it,_ she told them.

Toph was right. The tent was small, but cozy, and warmed quickly with their combined body heat. Zuko held a small flame in his palm while they rolled out a sleeping bag and hung a cloak in front of the door. They arranged themselves around each other awkwardly until they lay down stiffly, Katara resting on his arm and smelling the smoke still on his shirt from the day before.

They said nothing for a few long minutes. Katara wasn't even sure if she could breathe, and what seemed so natural and relaxed out by the fire felt forced under the chilly granite roof.

She felt how Zuko shallowly breathed, nervous and rigid. "I don't know about you, but I could go for some fire whiskey right now."

She turned toward him and rested her hand on his chest. "Why's that?" His heart was rapid, like a nervous rabbit.

His chest rose as he inhaled. "I'm just nervous," he blurted. "Some liquid courage would be great right now."

She tilted her head up so he would know she was looking at him even in the dark. "I don't want to be drunk for this," she admitted. "I don't know about you, but I've been imagining this for over a year and I want to remember every single awkward moment."

He laughed, a soft puff of hot air caressed her cheek. "What makes you think that we'll have awkward moments?"

"Zuko," she said simply, finding his scarred cheek with her hand in the dark. "You are a huge dork."

He opened his mouth to respond, but she pressed her mouth to it instead. He quickly forgot what he was going to say.

* * *

Zuko tried not to wake her up too early. This waterbender was particularly cranky when woken at the crack of dawn, had waxed eloquently about how excited she was to sleep now that the curse was lifted, and he would not ruin it for her.

He felt the sun peak over the horizon and pulled her closer to him. She was still human, and so was he. He held his breathe until dawn had fully broken, and a while after, feeling her curves nestled up against him.

The small tent was surprisingly warm, even with just their cloak as a door. Katara was curled into his side, resting on his left arm. It was completely numb, and he knew if he tried to move, it would cramp up and cause more problems. Instead he watched her. Her hair was a wild halo around her head, sticking to his chest and his stubble. He wiped his mouth and chin with his free hand, wondering how hair could move so much when its owner slept as still as a rock.

He started just stroking her hair. Light streamed through a crack Toph had left for ventilation, and he admired subtle dark grey streaks in her hair. He didn't remember them from before, and he wondered when they had grown in. Had the dim light of sunrises and sunsets not been enough for him to notice?

The sun trekked a little higher in the sky, and he needed to step outside of the tent. He gently pulled his arm out from under Katara's head and sat up. Her brow furrowed and she grasped at his hand tightly.

"I'll be right back," he whispered and pressed a kiss to her temple. She moaned a little, but let go of his hand.

He pulled his trousers and shoes on in case the others made an unexpected early appearance, and snuck past the make-shift door, trying to keep as much light out of Katara's face as possible. He blinked in the sunlight and leaned on the crutch Aang had given him the day before to limp a short distance from the tent. His leg was still tender after two healing sessions, but it could support a little weight. He shivered in the crisp morning air, and massaged his arm until it no longer felt like needles pricked him.

The snow had stopped sometime during the night, and the sun cut brightly through a thin fog. The clearing was still; snow dusted their fire pit and belongings they had left out, including the two bowls they had neglected to wash the night before. The forest was still a dizzying array of white and green stripes. Lower bushes and plants bent under the weight of their snow.

He turned when he heard his name from inside the tent. He winced as he knelt and crawled back in, surprised to find Katara wearing his shirt, the tie loosely fastened. In the daylight, the persistent hunger of the last few months showed prominently in her sharp collarbone and thin cheeks. He wondered if, now that they were both human, they could eat more reliable meals.

Thoughts of food deserted him when she caressed his arm with one of her feet. His eye ran from the foot to the long line of her bare legs stretched out to where his shirt began at her mid-thigh. She was propped up on her elbows, smiling at him.

"It's not like I was gone that long," he said, both enjoying the sight of her in his clothing and a little put out that she had put it on.

She shrugged at him and widened her eyes. "My personal space heater left and I got cold. What is a girl to do?"

He slide up next to her and settled back onto the sleeping bag on his side, bending his good knee and propping himself up on his elbow. Katara's eyes traced a line from the fastenings on his pants up to his face. Her cheeks blushed a faint dusty pink when she realized he had caught her staring.

He reached out to sweep some of her hair behind her ear. Katara smiled and caught his hand, peeking up at him while planting kisses on it, trailing up his arm. By the time she hit his elbow, she was leaning forward enough that it was easy for him to catch her lips with his in a chaste kiss. They stayed like that for a few minutes; her hand caught in his and her other on his arm as if he were a lifeline.

Without breaking the kiss, she tugged at his arm and pulled him over her. Her legs tangled around him, and he groaned as he settled his weight between them. One of his elbows supported his upper body, the other hand was on her knee. He slid his hand up her outer thigh, and the hair on her leg stood up from goose bumps.

Zuko broke the kiss to look at her. One of her hands was wrapped around his neck tugging at his hair; the other had drifted down his chest and was playing with his waistband.

He shivered slightly at the touch of her finger on his hip and unconsciously rocked into her.

They had had sex before their curse, but it felt more real, more permanent this time. Before, they had fumbled around until something felt good, and tried to do everything quickly before a servant walked in. The first time they had made love after Zuko's banishment had also been frantic – they hadn't seen each other in months and it seemed like they had needed to make up for lost time as quickly as possible.

Now, after more than a year, Zuko wanted to take it slower. He wanted to savor it. He stroked her leg and her butt with his hand, and then languidly traced his finger along the crease where her leg met her hip. Her eyes fluttered close and she bit her lip when he inserted one finger in her and stroked that little nub with his thumb. She was so slick that he swallowed hard, and wondered if he could do this slowly. Her nails lightly scratched at his hip where she gripped at his waistband.

The tie around his shirt had loosened further, and he ducked to kiss along the edge of her breast. Her hand had slipped into his pants, gently circling him. He stopped for a second just to catch his breath and looked at her again. She was smiling.

"We can still go slow," she said. With her help, Zuko pushed his pants down and got them off one leg completely. He sank into her, knowing that he made a sound like a drunk getting a glass of whiskey after a day away from the bar.

Afterward, they spooned on top of the sleeping bag. Katara still had his shirt on, but the tie had come off and Zuko gently ran his thumb over her breast until her nipple hardened.

"You know, we still probably have a few hours left until noon," she said, stretching her back against Zuko's chest and grabbing his hand to roam lower. "I think we can do a few things other than nap until they show up."

"You have the best ideas," he murmured in her ear before kissing her neck.

* * *

Epilogue soon!


	17. Epilogue

Epilogue

Six Months Later

Suki tried not to fidget until lunch. A bead of sweat worked its way down her temple and the chinstrap of her hat tickled. The air in the Ba Sing Se processing center was stifling, made worse by the stench of unwashed travelers and the lack of air circulation.

She strolled over closer to the docks. No breezes filtered through the entrance, and the glow of the green crystals made time seem to loop endlessly. She sighed in defeat and lifted her coarse sleeve to wipe off her face.

_At least I don't have to worry about smearing my makeup now_, she thought. She had been at this post for close to six weeks, and had no more leads than she had when she left Kyoshi Island.

A bell rang, noting the hour. Suki sagged in relief and wove through the crowds to grab her lunch from her locker. She glanced around before climbing up the wall to the small shelf where she perched to people watch from a distance. This was her favorite part of the day, when she was above the fray. Nobody even thought to look up here, let alone bother her to help track down a wandering child or ask her why their false papers weren't working.

She hoisted herself over the ledge and froze. There was a boy already up there. He was a few years younger than she was, and he stared at her, just as wide-eyed, a fruit tart halfway to his mouth.

"I guess you needed some peace too?" she asked, deciding not to let this intruder ruin her lunch. She unfolded her kerchief and munched on a rice ball.

"Sorry, I didn't realize anyone else would use this," he said, fruit tart still midway to his mouth.

His hands were wrapped in dingy strips of cloth, and though he wore the greens and browns of the Earth Kingdom, there was something off about how they draped across his body. Suki motioned to his fruit tart, studying him closer.

"Want to trade an Unagi ball for a bite of that?" she narrowed her eyes as she tried to identify the fruit. "Lychee nuts?"

"Oh, I love Unagi balls," the boy said, eyes going wide. "You must be from the South."

Suki took the quarter that the boy offered her and held out the ball in return. She wondered if this world-traveler knew any worthwhile information to share. He seemed sweet enough – she could conduct this interrogation like a normal conversation.

"Yep, Kyoshi Island," she replied.

His eyes grew larger with excitement. "Kyoshi has an _island_?"

Suki nodded slowly. Who knew Kyoshi if they hadn't visited the shrine and the island? She pretended to still chew the lychee nut pastry while trying not to scare him off.

"Yes, it's a haven for refugees like here," she settled. "Kyoshi was an Avatar, you know."

The boy nodded. She needed a name. "I'm Suki, by the way."

"Aang," the boy replied, sticking out a grimy bandaged hand for her to shake.

She raised an eyebrow at his hand. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm still eating."

His face flushed and he muttered apologies.

"So, if you've traveled," she spoke around the rice in her mouth. "you've probably heard the rumors."

"Which ones?" Aang responded a little too nonchalant.

"With Winter Solstice," she laid her cards out, waiting for his response.

He furrowed his brow. "Erm, which rumors?" he shrugged half-heartedly.

"Oh, you know, about the Avatar," she pressed.

With that he practically flew up. "Oh, I see my friends, and I think they're looking for me over there," he said before practically floating down the wall face.

Aang. That was definitely an Air Nomad name. It lacked the hard k's and t's of the Southern Water Tribesmen who had given her a lift to Chameleon Bay. Aang was turning out to be the most interesting refugee she had met.

She tracked his movement through the crowd. She had left Kyoshi Island immediately after the large statue's eyes had glowed pale blue on the Solstice. Nobody, even the eldest villagers, had ever seen anything like it before, but once she hit the mainland, rumors of a boy with Airbending Tattoos who the Fire Nation had lost spread.

Even after the Southern fleet had dropped her off, she heard the same stories everywhere she went. Paintings and statues of avatars from so long ago even their names were lost glowed blue as if somebody were looking back out. She had taken this job as a way to gather information and save up money to join the Avatar if she ever found him. The gossip was good at this busy post, but Suki wondered if it was time to move on soon.

She spotted Aang waving at a group. She wiped her hands and clambered back down the wall. She wove through people, ignoring those who asked for help and even stepping around one pushy woman. She slid behind a pillar where he wouldn't see her. It was a strange group indeed. There was a couple all over each other – a Water Tribe woman with a young man with Fire Nation complexion and a nasty burn scar on half of his face. Suki winced thinking about what caused it. A man who looked Water Tribe sharpened the edge of a boomerang, and a blind girl also stood with them.

Aang pointed up at the ledge, and they directed their attention there. They huddled closer to each other, and Suki cursed to herself. There was no way should could eavesdrop with their heightened guard.

One of Aang's wrappings had loosened, and he took it off to rewrap it. She held her breath when she saw the blue tattoo.

Her eyes widened in glee when she realized where they stood. She paced across the floor away from the group and stood on a tile at the opposite side, where the acoustics threw the sound from the spot where the group stood.

Crowds bustled around her as a ferry docked, but she stood with her feet wide, hoping nobody would bother her here. Their voices were as clear as if she were on the other side of their pillar.

"-think we should be worried?" Aang asked.

"Well, our ferry leaves tonight, so we can keep an eye out for her if she tries to follow us," a man with a Southern accent replied.

"Why couldn't we have flown on Appa?" Aang responded.

"Will you give it a rest?" and impatient man's voice snapped. "We've been over this so many times – better to get into Ba Sing Se undetected and then have an easy escape. We should have come here weeks ago instead of taking so many group vacations."

"Right, so _Zuko_ won't take any more vacations," a girl sniped. "You weren't the one who couldn't see for the month we spent at the South Pole."

"That wasn't a vacation," another girl said. "That was – us trying to keep my family happy. We're probably going to get into the city, find _Lee's_ uncle and probably end up testing as many tea variations as we can afford. Not a vacation."

"I thought you liked tea," the impatient guy – Lee or Zuko – said.

"I do when the experience is relaxing," the second girl's voice grew shrill. "This," Suki imagined the girl motioning to the bustling port. "is not relaxing."

The crowds thinned as one of the ferries loaded, and she was able to see the group. The man with the huge scar on his face stood close to the girl from earlier, holding her elbow.

"Hey," he said more softly, though to Suki it sounded like he was next to her. "We'll find Uncle in the city, apologize that he had to miss the ceremony, and drink some tea," his voice got a little rumbly and made Suki blush. "Maybe we can send all four of them out on the town so we can have his apartment to ourselves."

"Or maybe we could sneak off for romantic date," the girl was turned fully toward him now, holding his hands. "Find a trashy inn and have another honeymoon."

"You know, that sounds like a vacation I can get on board with," he smirked. "After Aang defeats my father, maybe we can go to Ember Island again."

Suki decided that she had probably heard enough and strolled back to her post, keeping them in sight. She mulled over the strange conversations she had overheard. This group, made up of at least two water tribesmen, an airbender, and a man who looked remarkably like the wanted poster of the banished prince that had made its way to Kyoshi Island. The same man who talked about vacationing at _Ember_ Island after defeating his father.

She stood at attention even more and scanned the station for any potential threats to this rag-tag group. As soon as their ship had departed, she put in her notice to quit her post immediately, and purchased her own ticket to Ba Sing Se to track down and join the Avatar.

* * *

Thanks for all of the support – reviews, messages, follows, and favorites – you guys are the best. I'm excited to have finished my first multi-chapter fiction! It was kind of fun to go back and compare my 10k word first draft to the finished work.

I have another project in the works that I will start posting after I have it plotted out more. I may need a sounding board for a few ideas, so if you're interested in helping, hit me up here or over on tumblr (I'm dragon-hearted-girl). Hope to hear from you!


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